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Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:48 pm
by Bastien Comment
Hello everyone!

It's been a long time that I didn't post a report and I still have some hundreds of pictures to class but here's one I did in July in the area of Moscow and which is quite important to me. Indeed, in June, I got married and my wife is from Moscow. As she knows of course how much I love snakes and despite the fact that she doesn't, she managed to get informations for a spot which we visited on the 11th of July. Although Moscow wouldn't have been an obvious herping spot, we found 7 Vipera berus within around 2 hours and a half! The weather was excellent for berus, cloudy and almost cold for the season, about 15 degrees after 2 weeks of more than 25 degrees. So, enough talking, here are some pictures, hope you'll enjoy as much as I did ;)

Habitat

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Vipera berus

As you'll see, I've found both black (3 but could only take pics of 1) and normal coloured (4) adders. Most of them were of much bigger size than those I had found in Switzerland or in France.

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And some in-situ:

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Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:54 pm
by Andre Schmid
Nice ! Thanks for sharing :)

Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:13 pm
by Liam Russell
Nice to see a report from somewhere unusual.

When you say the berus were bigger - what kind of size were they?

Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:44 pm
by Paul Lambourne
Bastien

Lovely viper shots! Now you have such a good local contact and chance of some keyserlingii sites :D

Cheers paul

Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:17 am
by Jürgen Gebhart
Nice, Bastien!

Did you also found some Lacerta agilis?

Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:42 am
by Guillaume Gomard
Really cool to see adders from this part of the world, and what a nice way to start your union :). You were lucky with the temperatures because in summer they can be really really high there.

Re: Herping in Moscow, Russia

PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 5:11 pm
by Bastien Comment
Thanks for the feedbacks!

Liam: this will give you a rough idea of its size. As said, compared to the adders I've found so far in Switzerland and in France, this is definitely bigger...

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Paul: I would have preferred some kaznakovi spots but they don't occur in this area ;)

Jürgen: no Lacerta but a few Anguis fragilis.

Guillaume: indeed I've been very lucky with both my wife and the weather :D