friday noon I drove to the "Berner Oberland" in central Switzerland, where I arrived at late afternoon.
In the evening, my compagnions from Germany - Rainer Hähnlein, Alexander Pieh and Andre Schmid (in alphabetical order of family name), arrived too.
Saturday morning the weather was perfect and we went up the valley to an altitude of approx. 1´850 metres asl, where we looked for Vipera berus.
- the valley at 1´850 m asl
- Vipera berus habitat
- Vipera berus is living at the foot of the slope
- Vipera berus female in habitat
- juvenile Vipera berus
- Vipera berus female
- another Vipera berus female
at about 10.30 we drove down a bit to an altitude of 1´250 meters, where we looked for Vipera aspis "atra", now Vipera a. aspis.
- habitat of Vipera aspis
The grass was very high now. So it was quite difficult to find the vipers on the small open rocky spots within the meadow.
- subadult Vipera aspis female, with a more aspis aspis like pattern
- Vipera aspis male, with typical pattern in this valley
At around noon it gots very warm - to warm for vipers. So we had a rest and wanted to start at approx. 4 p.m. again.
But the weather changed dramatically!
- the valley at approx. 4 p.m.
- ..... and 30 minutes later
So we had no chance for more atra vipers and searched for slippery atras instead.
- Salamandra atra
- also babies have been on their way
My German friends had to leave at the evening and I stayed and hoped for the next day.
But contrary to the weather forecast, sunday was a cool and rainy day and I started my way home at 10 a.m.
But anyway, it has been a very nice and good saturday: 6 Vipera berus, 6 scaly atras and approx 25 slippery atras.
Sidenote to the herp pictures: I used my CPL filter the first time now (I´ve got it on thursday afternoon). And I dont know, but something went wrong when I had a long focal length (more than 120 mm). Maybe the autofocus didn´t work ok, or the filter doesn´t fit to long focal length.
I have to check this before my next trip to make good pictures.
Mario
