Tessin/Ticino - again

[Jürgen Gebhart]

The Weather forecast for the past Days for south Tessin was,
Wednesday rain and clouds,
Thursday rain,
Friday thunderstorms and a lot of rain,
Saturday thunderstorms and a lot of more rain
and for Sunday sun, no clouds! thought sounds not bad and decided to make one more Trip to the Tessin. All was as usual, Stand up at 4.00 h and start the Trip at 4.30 h arrived at Valle Morobbia at 8.15 h, Temperature was 12 Degrees and sunny.
The first Reptile I expected to found was Podarcis muralis, but it was a young Lacerta bilineata.



And more


Later the muralis woke up. Gravid female


After an half hour I hit my target, Vipera aspis francisciredi.






The next snake I found was a Coronella austriaca.




And then a Natrix natrix Helvetica






And some more Lizards, Lacerta bilineata and Podarcis muralis


Lacerta bilineata


At Noon most of the Lizard were basking in the shadow, not much activity anymore, so I decided to drive back home.

[Mario Schweiger]

Great aspis and Natrix
Although not black - they rock!

Mario

[Tim Leerschool]

Still a region I hope to visit someday!

Excellent photo's. Is the picture of the C. austriaca on a vertical wall?

Best regards,

Tim

[Peter Oefinger]

Grrreat!

[Borji Heras]

Great Francisciredi

[Francesco Tri]

Francisciredi spectacular!

It 'a pregnant female?

[Jürgen Gebhart]

@Mario, No Joke, Serious this was one of the nicest Vipera I ever saw. Not only the nice orange and white at the head, it was also shimmering blackblue on the complete Body. Sadly I don`t can keep that in the pic.

@Tim, Yes it was a vertical wall.

@Michael, parking lot, bridge? Do you mean close to the Ruin? No it wasn`t there, it was at the beginning at the dirt road.

@Francesco, Yes she is gravid!
All the aspis and berus females I found in the past weeks were gravid, should be a good year.

[Rok Grzelj]

No blacks!?
Nice findings...specially the natrix and aspis

[Paul Lambourne]

Jurgen,

Stunning viper portraits, looks reminiscent to the cover of Johan's book I love Tessin, top snakes, top climbing and top food... perfect

[Jürgen Gebhart]

- pretty surprising given the stones are jointed. (Is that correct english for "verputzte Fugen?")

I think it`s not a big surprise, it`s just the hunger that they lead.
Every of these new stonewalls have holes for the water that come out of the mountains (as you can see below in the picture of the coronella in situ) and in every of this holes a Pocaris muralis lives.