Dear herpers!
This friday I only had few hours in the morning for a trip. Since it had been raining strongly during the late night and early morning and temperature declined significantly I decided to drive up in the mountains looking for salamandra atra in activity. Maybe a good opportunity for some in-situ-shots of these funny black guys. The place is in a very narrow valley on about 1000m. As one can see in the pics the day was still very cloudy. Only few sun beams breaking through in the late morning.
First I arrived at a slope that is full of sources ending up in a series of small pools. I could find tadpoles of Bufo bufo and Rana temporaria and many froglets. Also some larvae of Mesotriton alpestris (only small ones).
The next place was a river bed with several pools which did not have any vegetation apart from green carpets of algae. In these pools there were only tadpoles of common frogs and hundrets of froglets and larvae of alpine newts – some of them were quiet big – I suppose that they maybe have hibernated as larvae. Also a freshly metamorphosised newt was quiet big (56mm).
Near this fall I found several Salamadra atra (5 in total – all in activity!)
Back at the river bed I could find several about one year old equally sized Rana temporaria - accumulated at the same place (why?) and Lacerta agilis close to the base of the river embankment. Under piles of twigs I could see few Zootoca vivipara disappearing. I could take a phoptograph of one completely patternless male – perhaps the most amazing find of the trip.
Nice herping to all of you!
Wolfram