It's always worth it to go out (for Salamandra) ;-)

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

A wet, windless night with 5°C, in between more open nights with temps around or sub zero.
70+ manders on the move, including an (attempted) amplexus between rather smallish partners.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Not that they're not out anymore around here, but I thought I'd post this little film I thought was rather enjoyable.

[Robin Duborget]

I don't understand a word but the video seems interesting

Robin

[Bert Vandebosch]

I couldn't have wished for a better start of the season! First time out and immediately a new personal record.
Very high temperatures for january last night: about 12°C. Also a strong and warm wind that blew from the ideal direction (= other side of the forest than where my route is located).
Result: 252 fire salamanders. 3 juveniles, 106 males and 143 females of which I counted 77 in the water, presumably depositing larvae. Already plenty of larvae in the water. Furthermore I counted 9 Common frogs (Rana temporaria).
As always a few specials were out and about:

This one is well known by now (see above):

Female depositing larvae:

Close up, underside of head of larva is showing:

Probably a 'new' yellow one:

My personal favorite also is still alive and pregnant again!:

Some more close ups of larvae deposits:
Almost out

out

And a final highly yellow one:

A certain chatty mouth might regret wanting to start a contest where I'm supposed to find 25% of his salamander counts in 2015

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

to reach 25% of the salamander counts I will do this year.

Bertje Zeurzakske, this means n° of visits (= true effort), not n° of animals (= lucky timing).

But, OK, you tickle, I act - I am going back out counting in a few hours. With Peter, btw.

Joking aside, it's amazing the number of depositors you found (again), I'm jealous! Also, I had only 50 two nights ago - I thought that was quite alright for January, but your number in this season

[Matthijs Hollanders]

Amazing Bert! Did you beat Jeroen's record?

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Did you beat Jeroen's record?

Well, yes, if you only consider my standard counts, but if you keep counting all night you can of course reach 500 or more (on those special nights). The fact that Bert counts that many in January makes me imagine that far higher numbers may still be possible on that site (e.g. in autumn).

Too bad I counted both the day before (50) and after (only 10) but not on the same day, although my random guess would be that I couldn't have achieved that high number. Bert and I still plan on measuring more precisely the exact transect length and (!)width, but I'm guessing densities at Bert's spot may be somewhat higher. And all that on the northern distribution limit of the species (albeit rather habitat than climate kept it from stretching further north in our area)...

As usual, however, I'm particularly jealous that I have such a (abnormally?) low number of larval depositing sightings. For all we know, Bert's spot might also be better at producing amplexi. Hence, his challenge to hit it hard this year

[Bert Vandebosch]

It keeps amazing me to see how thin the line is between a record night and finding almost nothing.
Today I was out again. Different forrest with probably lower abundance of fire salamander. But on a good night I found about 29 animals there. Today it was a little colder (8°C) with again a strong wind and a bit drier. I found only 2 big females, both in the water. In the same stream: at least 100 larvae seen (so there must have been quite some activity going on last week), 17 Alpine newts and 1 Palmate newt.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

It keeps amazing me to see how thin the line is between a record night and finding almost nothing.

But how thin is it really? We should try to set up a period where we both survey on a series of consecutive days sometime...

[Robin Duborget]

Woh ! Great pictures, I'm jealous, in fact I'm also a bit desperate about Salamandra salamandra ! In Corsica I now a lot of station with plenty of Salamandra corsica but since I live in Nice in the french southern Alps I have not been able to find a single one S.salamandra !!!
I'm jealous about your 50 or 100 individuals ....

What are the lowest temperature they can withstand at night ? What are the best conditions for looking for Salamandra salamandra ?

In fact the hard thing in this french department is to find the habitat of the salamanders... There are not very much little and slow stream left in the french riviera !

Robin