Every time I went to Buxton Heath, there was something new to me. This time, the adders (small poisonous snakes) started to wake up from their winter hibernation. So, besides cutting down the gorses, we looked around to search for the adders. The result was… we found more than 21 adders! When one volunteer told us we should walk in such direction so that our shadow followed us, I had no clue why it had to be so. Later I realized that the snakes were very sensitive and if there suddenly came a shadow, they would run away immediately.

To be honest, I do not like snakes. They look terrible, ugly and dangerous to me. However, our volunteer warden is very fond of snakes! He knew very well where the adders were hiding because he had been visiting the Buxton Heath for many years already. He led us to look for the hiding places of the adders. The adder sometimes was found to be alone, and sometimes to have one or even two other adders nearby.

Tha adders were not big in size and we could only watch them from a distance (because if we went near, they would run away). Therefore, I was not afraid to watch them. On the contrary, I found it very fun to search for them. They were hiding so well that it always took me some time to spot them (even though the people had already pointed to me where they were). (See the picture below. Could you spot the adders?)

The gorses looked so beautiful at this season. With their yellow flowers, they always stood out in the area.

However, for keeping the place a heath, we needed to cut off some of the gorses (my tools in the picture on the right below - a pair of loppers and gloves).

After cutting down the gorses, we needed to carry and pile them at one side. The gorses have thick and sharp thorns. So to hold them by hand, even wearing gloves, sometimes is very difficult. A clever way to do this is to use a pitch fork (see the picture in the middle below). To the gorses which had been cut off, we also painted a red chemical onto the surface of their remaining trunks to kill them permanently.

 Lunch time was always our happy time.