Are these adders mating?

Yesterday, for over an hour I was observing some interesting activity with 3 adders, 2 males and 1 female. I was stood a distance away quite happy to watch them through binoculars, in fact this qualifies as my best adder sighting because i was able to observe them and how they interact with each other, so much better than seeing a quick glimpse of a tail disappearing into the undergrowth!

I think i may have seen my first adder mating/courtship. but as i have never really observed this behavior before i do not know much, well i dont know anything about how or when adders breed, i think slow worms breed around this time so maybe adders do to.

What i observed was the female and 2 males spend a bit of time all coiled up together then they split up the female moving of not to far away and one of the males following her, they then spent some time together coiling and entwining whislt the other male watched from a distance.

I called him the lonesome male! but then i was surprised to see both the female and male return back to the other male for a while then she left them again and the males stayed together for a bit, they seemed to be tolerant of each other, no adder dance, i really thought i was going to see that happen! one of the males was doing a funny head shaking/bopping thing, cant really describe it that well, then one of the males went of again to the female im not sure if it was the same one as both males had similar markings, I'm not to good at identifying them by the markings,  do males take turns with the female.

I was also interested in that they were still visible when the sky became quite overcast, with a sudden hail shower and it was actually quite chilly in the wind they did go more into cover when the hail came but i could still see them. I took so many photos and none are excellent as i said i was stood a distance away, that's one of the only times i really wished i had a dslr with a great big zoom lens, i would have got some cracking shots then, but the zoom lens for my compact camera is not that powerful. it is hard selecting the best photos but here are a few.














Sorry for the photo bombardment but I'm really excited to have seen this and hope you will enjoy the pics!
But what have i witnessed? is this really adders mating or just typical adder behavior that i just have not observed before?

great observations; a reward for your patience and desire not to get so close that the animals' behaviour is disturbed.  I'd agree that it seems early for mating activity, given that males normally emerge before females and need to lie out to come into reproductive condition.  However, the jerking motions of the head do sound like the sort of behaviour associated with mating.  None of your males has shed, but I have also seen mating and the dance of the adders in individuals as yet unshed (though they shed their skin minutes after this behaviour in one case).  My guess is that it was a prelude of some more intense activity to come in a couple of weeks' time.

Cheers

Will

I agree with Will this is a prelude to mating activity. The head bobbing of the male is typical of mating behaviour, as is twitching/jerking of the entire body, but if it was all real you would have seen combat for sure! I was witnessing courtship behaviour in male common lizards this year almost on the day they came out of hibernation but it was too early for the females to be responsive.

First mating pair from London today:

great pic - looks like the female has attracted a living shadow!