Max wrote about the subject of snakes in her area and John followed up with some great photos so I thought I would look up the statistics of our only venomous snake the Adder.
Deaths are rare: only 14 deaths from poisoning were recorded in the past 100 years. In England and Wales only one death from adder bite was recorded in 1950-72, but there were 61 deaths from bee or wasp stings.

I kept a lookout for the hedgehog and sat on the back-step for a while,although I didn't see him I did discover there are more than one.I heard the little sort of grunty squeals they make when communicating. The cats returned from an adventure and Sooty sat on the window sill so I left him on watch,if anything comes out of the bushes he will see it. Zazzles decided my knee was the best place to be and showed interest in the camera cord and finally grabbed it.
The wildlife vigil continues.