THE Ledbury Naturalists met for their final talk of the winter programme on Friday, March 18. This was the club’s inaugural outreach talk and was given to a packed house in the Burgage Hall where over 70 people attended to hear local reptile expert Nigel Hand tell a fascinating story of Britain’s only venomous snake, the adder. This often misunderstood and threatened reptile is clinging to shrinking habitats in our local area but Nigel is leading research to better understand what adders need to survive, in order to better advise landowners how this truly beautiful animal can be protected. Rather than seeing it as a threat we should be doing all we can to allow the creature to maintain sustainable populations, otherwise yet another animal will become locally extinct. Among the threats they face, apart from human activity, there is predation by birds, surprisingly including pheasants. Left alone adders do not bite and left alone they have a chance to survive.

ALAN PIKE