Hardy Adders defy the late Winter

With possibly the coldest March on record for a long time finding suitable days to go out in the field are few and far between. With 3 days off work this week I felt sure after all the bad weather I would get one decent day, but the forecast said otherwise. So surprise yesterday morning when I woke to find the sun shining! A text from Tracy Farrer, sunny at hers in Shirebrook, sunny at mine Northwest Sheffield so must be sunny in between, so we arranged to meet at 10am. Got there full cloud cover, however it must have been sunny earlier because we got a record count of 14 male adders at the first stop 280masl. Moving up the hill to another more exposed site at 320masl we could only find another 2 and a ditch that normally has quite a few didn't have any. Common Frogs Rana temporaria had laid spawn with parts of clumps exposed from the water frozen. The winter keeps battling on, its just stopped snowing outside this morning!!!!