I have a personal project focussing on several species I failed to shoot so far in situ- at least in a way I would consider satisfying. Two of these are Bombina variegata and Pelophylax sp. I decided this morning to start at a place near my home - where I found some B. variegata this year. This is it:
- biotop
And the puddle where I found the first one:
- bombina puddle
There was only one Bombina in each of those puddles. But the first one was really a THE model. ...'t was a real casting show:
And the only other Bombina I could picture in twilight:
After this shooting I naturally was coverd with sludge - but I wanted to go on now to a pelophylax-place very near to the first one.
- pelophylax kingdom
The first herp I could find was a hatched sand lizard basking IN the water on floated grass! Unfortunately i was to slow to picture that...I decided to drop my pants to shoot som pelophylax pics and maybe dragon flies. It was interesting to find big tadpoals in the big pools but only metamorphosised froglets in the flat pools which of course are much warmer.
Variety in froglets:
And finally the big ones:
And I'm proud of that freehand-shot
!Finally I came back to the place where I found the basking sand lizard hatchling. But I went witness of this cruel and sad scene
:At least an interesting documentation of sand lizard canibalism...
Happy herping!
Wolfram
It looks like you've completed the task! Very nice frog and toad shots..and the spider is great! The sand lizard documentation is vert interesting..one can rarely witness such things in the wild! Thanks a lot for posting!
