In plain sight

Once through the gate on to the path that leads to the coast I unclipped the dog's lead and she trotted off. It's a black and white woven cord dog lead and I held it in my hand as I started after her. But then it was lying right there across the path... Except it wasn't, it was a snake, an adder, a nadder, y neidr (Welsh retains the original form of the word).

It lay basking  in the hot sun and its head moved as I moved,  keeping me in sight. The dog, fortunately,  had stepped right over it - perhaps she'd never encountered a serpent in her native Greece. After taking  some pictures I found a stick and flicked the adder into the undergrowth  for mutual safety.

The afternoon was a scorcher - although that seems a tactless hyperbole to employ in view of the actual, catastrophic, scorching ongoing in the Western USA.

On my homeward route via a woodland path I spotted more eyes:  on a dead branch a cluster of tiny bright orange discs each one with a barely-visible  fringe of perfect lashes. Eyelash fungus, Scutellinia scutellata aka Molly eye-winker (extra).


So much to see, and to be seen by.

 Post script
This is the first snake I've seen for about 3 years. I used to see  2 or 3 every year. I hardly ever see lizards now. The wildlife quotient of my corner of the British Isles has been visibly declining in the 26 years that I have lived here.