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Altitude reached by Vipera berus in UK?: |
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Wolfgang Wuster Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 326  View other posts by Wolfgang Wuster |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Just wondering: does anyone here have any information on the altitudes reached by adders in the UK? The Beebee & Griffiths New Naturalists' Handbook has nothing on this, so before starting a literature chase, I thought I'd be lazy and see if anyone here has the info at their fingertips  Cheers, Wolfgang Wolfgang Wüster School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://sbsweb.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
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Alan Hyde Senior Member Joined: 17 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 1416 View other posts by Alan Hyde |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Hi Wolfgang .. I'm 100% on this but , I think a small book I sent to Filthy has something about berus and altitudes . It might be worth asking him . Cheers, Alan O-> O+> |
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Alan Hyde Senior Member Joined: 17 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 1416 View other posts by Alan Hyde |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Oops! Incase you hadn't guessed that should've been ,"I'm NOT 100% on this"  O-> O+> |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Hi Wolfgang, You would gave thought this one would have been srtaight forward. I have been trying to get info on altitude records for berus in UK. All the Scottish info is sparse and refers to low lying valleys. My own records include a small population in Brecon Beacons near Sennybridge at 300m asl. My old study site at Cors Caron us about 160m asl, but I have recorded adders near where i used to live at Pontrhydfendigaid at 230m asl. I have quizzed a number of naturalists who haunt our uplands but most come back with the low lying valley occurrence. I get the feeling that truly upland/alpine populations are confined to central and eastern Europe, (see Jean Claude Monney and also Luca Luiselli i.e. Swiss Alps and Italian Alps. If anyone does find out more about high-living adders in the UK then let me know-need it for me book.
Tony Phelps |
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Wolfgang Wuster Senior Member Joined: 23 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 326 View other posts by Wolfgang Wuster |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Hi Tony, That's the impression I had as well. The reasonf or my asking was simply that we came across some habitat that looked perfect (nice thick heather, plenty of sun traps etc.) at ~4-500 m asl last week-end, and started musing about whether there was any potential for adders there. When I lived in Aberdeen, all the adders I saw there were very much on the Valley bottoms on Deeside - I will have to look up the altitude. I guess the Alps are so high that the adders up there get the benefit of extra heat radiation, whereas over here, they just get the extra rain... Cheers, Wolfgang Wolfgang Wüster School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor http://sbsweb.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/ |
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Caleb Forum Coordinator Joined: 17 Feb 2003 No. of posts: 448 View other posts by Caleb |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 The main adder site I visit is at about 250m, I think (Co. Durham). This is still low-lying compared to the surrounding area. Older books suggest that the Yorkshire and Durham moors used to be good for adders, and these are at relatively high altitude. I've never seen adders on the 'proper' moors, though. |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Any more info would be appreciated - particularly when considering mating periods. Luca's adder population doesn't 'get going' until around mid May in the eastern Alps. Talking about that. A colleague, William Martin, (Wolfgang knowns him), has been studying Crotalus horridus in WV USA for many years and regularly updates me on what he is up to. Timber rattlers have a sumer breeding cycle which means that the snakes have left the dens and are well dispersed - so you can imagine William has done a lot of radio telemetery trailing. Right now he is still recording snakes at the dens - spring comes late to North Fork Mountain WV. I am very interested in vipers that live at high altitudes; one snake that I must get round to is Vipera monticola in the Haut Atlas a small endemic that was once thought be a subspecies of V.latastei. Lives in thorn cushion 2000-3000m asl and feeds on about three species of lizard - gives birth to just two babies - and average adult size is 350mm. One high living viper that I will get to grips with this year is the berg adder Bitis atropos. Tony Phelps |
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-LAF Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 317 View other posts by -LAF |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Whilst in Wales the single most productive sites that I found for common lizards (LOTS!) was behind Llyn Padarn where they occured along a path up to just below 400m where they stopped quite abruptly. There was a fabulous looking Adder site above one of the disused quarries just off this path also at around 400m (I'm checking this of the OS map as I type so should be fairly accurate) that was flat, awash with heather, had rock piles etc. Spent quite a while checking for Adders around it. There were plenty of bits of human scrap (boards, metal, tyres) that I checked under but all to no avail. No sign of Adders or Lizards (the weather was good for it too). There was another excellent looking site on the sides of Foel Dduarth at around 300m but that too proved unproductive (Slow worms nearby at 200m though, 1 dead on a road). The highest altitude I've found any Adders in N. Wales was 135m on the island. I was in Devon/Somerset all last week and went about speaking to the people at the Exmoor National Park centres. At one place apparently Adders are regularly seen on the high moors (They're crawling with common lizards), often by ENP staff, which here is between 300-350m. Unfortuanately public transport times meant we could only visit the site between 11am and 5pm (not the best Adder watching times). We didn't see any but the information seems reliable. Staff were surprised that we didn't see a single one during our 3 visits as they see them on a frequent basis. This makes the Exmoor site the highest Adder site I've ever encountered in the UK. Cheers, Lee. Lee Fairclough |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 04 Jun 2003 Thats' really of interest to me Lee, and I would like to check it out. If you are OK about giving me locations that would be great. Its just the sort of thing I need for the book - and believe me I have quizzed many people about upland adders.
Cheers
Tony |
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Caleb Forum Coordinator Joined: 17 Feb 2003 No. of posts: 448 View other posts by Caleb |
Posted: 30 Jun 2003 I was out on Weardale in County Durham yesterday, and found a single adder at this site: 
The path across the photo is spot on 350m asl according to the map. The moor goes on up to over 500m, so it might be worth looking for some even higher ones... This is the adder in question:  |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 02 Jul 2003 Hi, Its very late, just got back from Italy. Right now Italy is suffering a heatwave 35deg, no rain since April. Consequently it was hard work looking for V.aspis, but eventually we found some in a forest reserve, Manziania 450m asl, also very nice male Coluber flavoviridis at 1.40m. Luca Luiselli, myself and Ernesto Filippis, then went to Gran Sasso Nat Park and after a few hours found four V.ursinii all deep in dwarf juniper and very hard to spot, but got some great pix with 'Stella Massif'in the background.Campo Imperatore, 1900m asl. Visited an aspis site a short distance away Fonte cerreto 1200m asl. Two males here, one about 70cm. An encouraging thing, all this was done with permits and the rangers are really on the ball quizzing those who wander from the road. Good place for Italian crested newts too. Am going back in Sept for a Viper convention. Tony |
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-LAF Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 317 View other posts by -LAF |
Posted: 02 Jul 2003 Nice one Tony, glad you got the snakes you wanted despite the weather - although only a herpetologist would complain that is was 35?C when they went to Italy! 
Cheers, Lee. Lee Fairclough |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 03 Jul 2003 It seems that between us we have established that 350m asl is about the maximum altitude for adders in the UK - are there any more bids?? As I have said, I have really looked into this and its great that Lee and Caleb have come up with this. Now I want your habitat pictures guys, if possible on 35mm film, not digi.(please!) I am going to Cors Caron in Ceredigion tomorrow to check on the adder population there. Tony |
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-LAF Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 317 View other posts by -LAF |
Posted: 03 Jul 2003 If you are after habitat pics for the upland sites I'm affraid I only have digital files (I do have a 16.5 million pixel narrow field panoramic but only as an 8bit tiff, jpeg shown, if you want it I'll send it on CD as it's a 50Mb file). My girlfriend may have the same location on 35mm transparency so I will check. 
Cheers, Lee. Lee Fairclough |
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Ewan Member Joined: 14 Jul 2003 No. of posts: 21 View other posts by Ewan |
Posted: 14 Jul 2003 Hi I do appreciate that the locations were very remote, but I'm particularly worried about berus being persecuted and as the rule was agreed by all the original forum members I felt it best they were deleted.
Ewan Shilland Contract Research Scientist Environmental Change Research Centre University College London |
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 14 Jul 2003 Many thanks for that Ewan, that is really useful. Tony |
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Ewan Member Joined: 14 Jul 2003 No. of posts: 21 View other posts by Ewan |
Posted: 15 Jul 2003 Oops, sorry, spot the new guy. In precis they were records from 390/395m elevation in northern Scotland. I've also seen adders at about 370m in the galloway forest park in SW Scotland. Ewan. Ewan Shilland Contract Research Scientist Environmental Change Research Centre University College London |
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j gaughan Senior Member Joined: 04 May 2003 No. of posts: 57 View other posts by j gaughan |
Posted: 25 Aug 2003 nice one ewan and tony _on a high welsh 'adder' : i received an interesting 2nd hand report from a portsmouth field herpetologist i was 'bracken spraying' with last week; on august 9th, he climbed a 900m peak in 'snowdonia national park' and was afterwards informed by a fellow climber / naturalist type of an adder seen during his ascent; the snake was on the narrow (animal) trackway through heather, used by climbers, at an estimated altitude of c 600m; i'll be carefully 'checking the maps' with him this week _his own herp encounter that weekend being a humble 'common frog' in a crevice _on scottish highland adders : just a 1970 lit. ref. to a glen beside 'loch ness' that rises to over 750m _on a N england report : received a reliable record (very close views) from parents at my daughters school _while cycling in the 'yorkshire dales national park', with surrounding land rising to over 450m; they have a precise grid ref _on SE english adders : our 'highest' wealden site is c 230m asl with 'melanic' form of viviparious lizard & adder present; _ the highest natural point in the region being 294m at 'leith hill', surrey it would be nice to keep an (updatable) register of known 'high altitude populations' of our herps on these islands tony, i'll PM details of the above to you, when complete john |
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Gemma Fairchild Krag Committee Joined: 14 Feb 2003 No. of posts: 193 View other posts by Gemma Fairchild |
Posted: 25 Aug 2003 John, one of my Surrey sites is 240m, limited by habitat only from the peak of 250m. Nearest high point is 272, seen one or 2 near the top of the very shear slope in the past. Though I don't fancy falling down it again to check the exact height. ----RAUK e-Forum---- 
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Tony Phelps Forum Specialist Joined: 09 Mar 2003 No. of posts: 575 View other posts by Tony Phelps |
Posted: 28 Aug 2003 Thanks John, and all, My adder book will be out end of 2005 so all this 'new' info will be most welcome. Tony |
- Altitude reached by Vipera berus in UK? |