Germany and French border 2013 [complete]

[Andre Schmid]

This Ticks

Was nice to meet you, hopefully next time without Ticks and more Adders

[Guillaume Gomard]

Hi all,

Below is an update of my post gathering the pictures taken between June and September in Germany (B-W + R-P). Those days were really hot here and it was not easy to find snakes. However, I was quite successful in observing Coronella in the vineyards of Rheinland-Pfalz at the early hours of the days (between 7-10h). A significant time was also dedicated to N.tessellata which is much more active during the day in the rivers. In particular, I enjoyed observing those snakes preying on small fishes as you will see on the pictures below. You will also find the other encounters present in the areas I visited.

In situ picture:

Close-up of the previous picture

You can see a small hole in the rocky stairs close to the snake head. The snake disappeared into it after this first and last picture!

Another one, close to the same place:

This young guy was hanging around a river with two of his brothers/sisters during a very hot summer morning. Not a snake but cool find...

Adult tessellata preying on fishes

Same specimen trying to get some fresh air!

I rescued this one from the river, which explains its strange wings...

An empty circle has been formed just above the snake which is intensively looking for fishes. Other snakes were hunting at few meters and every 5 minutes you could hear a water sound indicating that an attack had been launched.

If a picture should summarize the word "laziness", it could be this one

[Guillaume Gomard]

Here is the following of the pictures I just posted, now for the period between September and October. For the end of the season, I tried to focus again on V.aspis for the French border, and on V.berus for the German one (north of Black Forest). The main goal was to picture young vipers on each site, which was done despite the high vegetation (that's why I also prefer Spring time...). A group of young adders, a yellowish aspis and a gorgeous Eresus were the highlights of this end of the season.

The first juvenile seen this year. So contrasting coloration that it's hard to miss it!

A beautiful male Eresus, in defensive behavior (note the characteristic vertical position of its abdomen)

Another young asp viper, and a big one!

This young asp was found at the end of a long herping day in September (7th of Sept.). The site was visited in the morning and despite the perfect weather, nothing was found. At the end of the afternoon, between two rains, this beauty was spotted in the vineyards under a piece of wood. Unfortunately, this picture does not give full credits of its bright and yellowish coloration.

A rainy day, in Rheinland-Pfalz.

Back to Black Forest!

Young adders observed on 20th of September. In situ picture.

Non in situ picture stressing the differences of coloration among the young adders.

Other ones:

Not completely black adder, resting at 1m from the trail and unnoticed by the walkers...

Another day, another adder:

The end (?)

All in all, it has been a very good season for me, with the possibility to follow a complete cycle for the asp vipers (first basking times, mating, gravid females and resulting youngsters) and for some amphibians (newts and Bombina). I also had a great time in Black Forest investigating the area, which is so large that I will need many more seasons to know it well! As regards V.berus, I mostly found black specimens and my melanistic/non-melanistic ratio should be therefore higher than for other people such as Andre. However, it should be pointed out that I missed the beginning of the season in Black Forest, so let's wait what the next season will be like. In 2014, I will also try to find some species I missed in 2013, namely N.natrix, Z.longissimus and Hyla arborea. For the latter, I visited an area where hundreds of Hyla were observed in 2012, but this year, completely nothing! Herping is not an exact science...

Guillaume

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

All great, but I particularly love that 'sad' muralis

[Niklas Ban]

All great, but I particularly love that 'sad' muralis

agree but the lazy bilineata also isn't bad

[Andre Schmid]

Hi Guillaume,

cool thread ! For sure my favorites are the Vipers, most I like the cute baby asps and adders Congrats on this succesfull trips.

[Guillaume Gomard]

Thanks for your feedback! The temperatures are still quite high here, maybe the last berus trip is not really the last, after all...

[Bastien Comment]

Nice pictures Guillaume, thanks! Indeed, season is not over yet. Yesterday, I've found between 15 and 20 Young asp vipers in the place you've come with me and I even guess I missed the birth for a few minutes only because I've found a skinny female and about 1 meter around, 5-6 babies that hadn't shed yet and 2 born deads. I'll also post some pictures in the next days/weeks of the end of my season

[Guillaume Gomard]

Wow, too bad you missed the complete action but it's already a nice observation. Considering the number of big females in this area, I'm not suprised that you found so many youngsters... So let's meet next year to photograph the new generation

[Guillaume Gomard]

With around 20°C and a sunny weather, I couldn't resist to try again my chance in Black Forest. I arrived on spot at 9h30 and after only 5 minutes I saw the first young adder which was active. Ten minutes later I spotted the second one resting in the shade. One hour later, in the same area, I found a third young adder. It should be precised that there is still a great number of grasshoppers and the young berus seem really well-fed. However, despite my 5 hours walk in the forest, I was not able to observe a single adult specimen! With the temperature decreasing in the following days, I guess that the season is really over here, at least for me.

Some pictures of the day: