adders near Salzburg

[Mario Schweiger]

If everything works perfect (like I would think about), I will post pictures of the fresh shed males, looking for females, tomorrow

[Ilian Velikov]

Mario, you say you've been out with your video camera! Any chance we can see some videos?

[Mario Schweiger]

First, I wanted to go to the place this morning.
But I have a lot of work with all the animals of my dead friend.
Weather forecast for the weekend is bad - cold and snow down to the lowlands.
So I will go next week again.
After having some good video sequences, I will post a ink to a 3 to 4 minutes movie here. Please be patient!

Mario

[Ilian Velikov]

Thanks,Mario! I'm looking forward to watching them!

[Mario Schweiger]

Today, 11 days after my last visit, I´ve been at my berus place again.
I arrived there nearly exact at 9:00 a.m.
Temperature has been 14°C in the shade, no clouds.
But too late. I only found 2 males and one female, "basking" in the light shade up to 11:30 a.m.
I think, all males have shed now, exuviae everywhere

shedded skin of male 10/09 "in situ"

Like these two males, allready shed, also the female had bright new colours.
Unfortunately, like Daniel Bohle told me, after shedding, the adults will be "on their way" and dont sit still - waiting for you.
So no pics of them.

Around 10:30 I found a youngster of last year

berus baby 1a

berus baby 1b

Additional, "hundreds" of Zootocas in all sizes.

Next visit is planed for wednesday, April, 6th - and very early in the morning

Mario

[Andre Schmid]

Nice findings Mario ! I always love to see youngster pics

[Mario Schweiger]

a little bit data playing

shown is the male number 10, found in 2009 (individual/year of first observation - date of observations shown at pins).
yellow = observations in 2009
blue = observations in 2010
green = observations in 2011 (1x individual, 1x shed skin).

yellow bar = 10 metres.

[Peter Oefinger]

I think, I never would find a snake - even with Google Earth data!

[Paul Lambourne]

I had my first female adder of the year today!! ( I think judging by size and colouration) I will be monitoring the site to see if I can get some " duelling " adder shots

Kind regards, Paul

[Mario Schweiger]

last weekend we had been at the Lacertidae meeting in Gersfeld/Rhön in Germany. Saturday afternoon we did a quick trip to the mountains nearby, to an area, called "Rotes Moor" to search for Vipera berus. - We found none
But beside around 50 Zootocas we saw some amphibians.
It must have been quite dry there during the last time!

drying out egg clutches of Rana temporaria

drying out egg clutches of Rana temporaria

Close by we found one subadult Rana temporaria

subadult Rana temporaria

below logs and rocks some newts

Lissotriton vulgaris

Lissotriton vulgaris

Josef "Pepp" Schmidtler told us, its very uncommon to find L. vulgaris at such "a high altitude" in the German central mountains.
Below a larger rock we found 4 L. vulgaris and one L. helveticus together

5 Lissotriton. The red arrow points to the L. helveticus

Lissotriton helveticus

difference between L. vulgaris (left) and L. helveticus (right)

During 4 hours in my moor nearby on Wednesday last week, I only found some Zootocas, but no Vipera berus. No clouds and much to warm (27°C at noon).
So I visited the place this morning again, arriving there around 8 a.m.
Within 5 hours, beside lots of Zootocas only one "subadult" Vipera berus male, approx. 45 cm. No adults to see.
Where the hell is the mating place - I havnt found it during all the years
I think the male, found today, doesnt join the mating. He was still on his winter/early spring place.

todays aspect of the moor

Zootoca "baby" from last year

another view to the bog

adult vivipara

info sheet along the nature trail. watch the scientific name! The German words say: "This venomous adder likes to bask on rodden logs. The reputation of this nice snake is more worst than she would earn, biting only when heavily disturbed. But anyway, please stay on the trail.

Vipera berus male

Vipera berus male

btw, I´m very sorry, not replying to all your nice postings and uploaded good to very good pictures
But I´m running out of time at the moment.

Mario