Another smooth snake

Since Jeroen posted one of these, a few days ago, I have been visiting some of the sites where I am involved in a regular monitoring programme of the species, along with the other British reptiles. I have found these guys very difficult to photograph, and this shot is my best effort to date.

It does at least show why this is a "smooth" snake. On both adder and grass snakes each scale on the body has a keel running laterally through the middle. The smooth snake has no such keel and therefore feels a lot smoother.

Although the species is heavily protected in the UK, the licence under which I carry out my job specifically allows me to photograph them as long as I do not remove them from site. This has to be one of the more unusual "perks" of a particular job, but I'm not complaining.

Nikon D200, 150mm Sigma. Aperture priority, f8, 1/250th, 320 asa

Good one David.
Only ever seen one on Studland a long time back ( before the nudists came !! )
Cheers
john

Very good details & I like the comp. the bg shows of a bit of enviroment too.
A very good looking image

Lee

You have done a good job, nice detail,colours,well done

Very cool David.

Phil.

Yep, have to agree David, one of your best snake images to date.. Very well seen and taken and a much better POV. I look forward to getting some of these myself this year..

Brett

Nice shot David. Would like to see one of these myself one day. Though they're not as pretty as our other snakes IMO ( - stubby head!)

Greg

I like this too, I must admit to being very wary of snakes after taking close-ups of a Boomslang in Africa not know what it was or how toxic its venom is!

Very nice David, never seen one to my knowledge, certainly not like this. Like it a lot.

Well seen and taken David. I've never been close to seeing one so its nice to be able to view a good image of the species

Great shot. It's a lot of snake.