The Adder or Viper Vipera berus is a highly protected species frequenting open habitats of heathland, moorland and woodland edges. Adders mate after emerging from hibernation in spring, but unlike some snakes, females do not lay eggs but give birth to up to 20 live young in late summer. Britain’s adder population is in decline. Habitat loss is thought to be the leading factor, with intensive agriculture destroying suitable habitat and causing adder populations to become fragmented and isolated.
For thirty years, John has ventured across the world returning with stories of his experiences of the wilderness which few have encountered. He has drunk tea with Thangboche’s High Lama in the Kumbu, collected shells from Pacific beaches, run with wilderbeests in the ancient dusts of Serengeti, hiked to hidden springs of Grand Canyon, encountered walrus’, wolves and streams of caribou in the low islands of Aleutian Alaska. His travels are infused with adventure and wonderment, from Galapagos to the Andes, Namibia, Mongolia and the Amazon Basin. Closer to home, John has photographed almost all wild land locations in Britain, from the windswept tors of Cornwall to white strands of the Outer Hebrides.
As a photographer of wilderness it is the drama of landscape, its biodiversity and wild weather that attracts him most. Major expeditions including seven months spent in Antarctica, a winter in Spitzbergen and an historic four hundred mile traverse of the Greenland Icecap, John's assignments have taken him to some of the wildest lands on Earth.
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