I'm here, I'm here! It's not that I forgot, I just haven't been home... and when I was, I was either resting or doing stuff I needed to do between field work.
You more-or-less know the short version of the story, and quite a bit of the longer variant. So I'll just fill in some details. We set up the light traps between 19:30 and 20:00. Although conditions weren't ideal, we immediately started getting cool stuff. Including this little fella, at 20:19, right by a pyramid.
Somewhat after that, while making one of our rounds along the road, we heard the Big Guy hissing. By the time I returned with the gloves and hook, he was still hissing but we could hear him moving away... and stopped hissing! I was crazy enough to dive into the bushes, after him. By our guesstimate, he was a couple of m inside the thick vegetation, but we didn't know if he was on branches or on the ground (the road was elevated in that part). I reached the spot, couldn't find him anywhere! I checked branches, looked under stones (those I could move)- nothing! Toni decided to give up, I waited for a little while, perfectly still and quiet... a gut feeling. Then he started hissing! About 2 m behind me (even further away from the road). And he was moving away from me. It wasn't easy, but I was certainly gaining on him. I reached a big, dense rose bush, heard him inside- not moving... then I saw him: he was BIG, loosely coiled up, facing me, probably knowing there was no way I could reach him in there. If I decided to dive there and then after him, I'm 100% sure he would've been out of my reach by approx. 10-20 cm. I started pushing the branches away, but he didn't start retreating until it was too late. Knowing it was going to be my only chance, I dove after him... pushing a few more branches with the right side of my body, and caught him mid-body, at 20:57. Since I didn't have a bag, I had to hold him and push out of the bushes and then climb the steep slope back to the road. Toni and I were both in shock.
We returned to the car and measured his temp., the air temp and his lengths. His temp. was 14.-something, air temp. was 12.6°C if I remember correctly. (Toni wrote them down, he's in the field now so I can't ask him) It was also windy at times. I filmed his release, it will be on YouTube when I get the chance to edit & upload...
The Big Guy was the first (and only) live member of the species we found for the 10×10 km square. The longissimus and two frog species that also "visited" our light traps were all the only records of those species for the square, for both days we spent there.
So, no more of the "why are you going to catch
bugs at night...?!?" comments, since the method obviously also works for herps! Ok, it works
spectacularly once in a blue moon... but it works.
but Mladen actually has to relax not from this find, but from his subsequent trip to Modena, Italy,...
And the field trips after Modena...
Came back from one yesterday, actually...
To the best of my knowledge, so far orchids have never produced an effect like this one... But never say never, wait and see... hope...
Bero, not sure if this will be impressive enough for this (to me it is), but yesterday Ljiljana B.-V., orchid lady and our mutual friend, was with her husband at her orchid site near her home (also our ammodytes site), looking for orchids. They found a shed skin of ammodytes and at least 4-6 males near and/or on it- moving about, basking, twitching... they observed them at a distance of only a couple of metres, for quite some time. They even filmed them. The snakes were mostly non-responsive to their presence. Today Ljiljana visited the same spot with Petra Š. (employee of the Public Institution for the County) and saw the same thing today... and even an attempted mating of a male & female.
I only saw part of the first video, I haven't yet had the time to watch both of them completely yet, but it seems to be quite an interesting encounter, and one I'm fairly envious of!