ONE of the UK’s only venomous snakes has been captured crossing a fast-flowing stream in the Highlands by a national park ranger.
A clip of an adder slithering along a stony edge of a stream before swimming across the water was shared to social media by the Cairngorms National Park last week and has since gone viral.
Adders are one of just three snakes native to the UK, alongside grass snakes and smooth snakes.
The viper is the only wild snake that is venomous in the UK, but is not usually considered aggressive unless provoked.
“If you’re lucky enough to see one of these elusive creatures, they are usually basking in the sun, but one of our rangers captured this amazing footage of one crossing a burn,” the Cairngorms National Park said in a post to social media.”
The short video was taken by one of the park’s rangers, Pete Short, and it shows the adder slithering over stones on the burn’s edge before swimming against the current to cross the water.
The snake struggled for a short period to find a way out of the other side of the burn before it was seen sliding between two stones.
The clip has since gained thousands of likes on Facebook, with many people sharing their own experiences of coming across adders in the Scottish countryside.
According to the Cairngorms National Park, the name adder comes from the Middle English name for snake, naddre, while in Gaelic, the word snake translates to Nathair
The post added: “Ancient place names across Scotland tell us that we have co-existed with these remarkable reptiles for centuries.
“There is a point on Lochnagar on the Balmoral Estate called Cnapan Nathraichean – which means adders’ knoll or knob, another word for a small hill or mound.”
