Last updated 21:49, Wednesday, 05 March 2008

I HAVE said before that this has been an unusually mild winter but then the winter of 1946-47 was also variable, exactly like this year, until on the 15th or ‘the Ides of March’ winter dropped in on us with a vengeance to become the hardest in memory with 20-feet drifts of snow as the norm.

However, we have had snowdrops starting to show their tiny spears above the ground in mid November, although it has taken them another three months to come into full bright bloom, along with the primroses and crocuses at the top of the Lodge Walk.

But this new rebirth of nature has not been confined to the flora of the countryside.

In mid-february, my young friend postie Stan told me he had seen an adder basking in the sun. A week later I walked up Whita, past Whita Well to the Soldier’s Head.

On upwards to the top and near the Malcolm Monument I went through the slip gate and past the quarries before dropping to the Castle Craigs.

There were still a few patches of snow and ice on the path round to the Whita Yett but on I went, past the two wee cairns, when I spied a rather hirsute figure ensconced near the MacDiarmid Memorial.

I realised that I was about to have the pleasure of the company of another postman or rather an ex-postman, another young friend, postie Norman.

Norman Allan was staring intently at the windswept ground where, near his feet at the base of a rock, lay a male adder. It never moved.

“Do you think it is dead?”, asked Norman. “Pick it up and see.” “A’m no daft but yesterday it was basking in the sun on top of the rock.” And so Norman and the Wanderer parted company.

But two days later I met another gentleman of that vintage. Jim Jackson told me that Norman said the adder had moved a distance by the following day. So there must be life in the old snake yet.

But what is an adder or viper? The male adder can be as much as two feet in length, while some females can be a little longer. The male can vary in colour and markings but has a dark zigzag line down its back, with a V mark on top of its broad, flat head. The female is usually of a duller, brownish colour. If you ever see two entwined adders, do not interrupt them because they could be mating.

Over the years I have seen a number of adders and most have been somewhere in the area between Perterburn and Tarras Lodge on the far side of Whita.

The largest I saw was slithering across the middle of the road near the bridge. As my young dog bounded up, the snake reared up on it tail and seemed to hiss. Corrie was dumfounered but, luckily, I managed to call him off before any damage was done.

About half-a-mile downstream I came across what looked like a giant slice of Swiss roll and realised it was a large, curled-up adder.

I tentatively prodded it with my nibby and the reptile moved off, only to reveal a female underneath. The Wanderer, in turn, beat a retreat and never even enquired what they were doing.

My other encounter was on the upper Becks Burn when I thought that I had been jabbed on the ankle by a stick. Next day I realised from the marks that it had been from adder’s fangs.

I visited the doctor and consulted a young trainee and the conversation went something like this: “I’ve been bitten by an adder.” “What is an adder?” “A viper”, I replied.

“Dr Kennedy, please come here, a patient has been bitten by a viper.”

Dr Kennedy’s diagnosis was straightforward. “If it had been a serious bite, you would have been dead by now. Adder bites seldom kill the fit person, only the very old, the very young or the very small.”

So the moral is – always search the ground before sitting down on muirland or hillsides, especially on warm, spring days.