Adder

We were working in the hills above Drumnadrochit today. The walking was quite hard on long tussocky heather. I had to walk across the face of a steep bank. I had the RTK pole in my left hand and the ground dropped steeply on my left too. It was very tempting and easy to grab a handful of heather with my right hand to offer some stability to my progress. It was really awkward walking.
Then this guy appeared my path!
Adders do not actively harm humans and most bites are a result of people trying to pick the animal up. I had my fixed wide angle lens compact in my pocket and this is a crop out of the image so probably a 1mp image. I didn’t want to get any closer. Seconds later the snake nosed in to the long heather here and it was gone.