Montenegro 22nd-29th June 2016 (Part 2)

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Montenegro 22nd-29th June 2016 (Part 2)

Postby Clive Brignull » Sat Jul 16, 2016 8:06 pm

The next area we searched was around lake Skadar with the hope of finding Elaphe quatuolineata. Success was achieved with a large (1.6m) individual found. Also seen at this location was Pelophylax shqipericus.

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As we had been successful in our quest to find Elaphe quatuolineata, we decided to move unto our next destination, Biogradska National Park. Here we focused the majority of our efforts towards finding Vipera ursinii. We were rewarded with 3 specimens. At our second accommodation at Kolasin, we were also fortunate in finding Rana graeca.

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On the last day of the trip the planned visit to Durmitor National Park looked doubtful when the weather changed for the worse. On arrival, the clouds rolled in and it started to rain with temperature quickly plummeting to 9'C. We were extremely lucky to find our target species Dinarolacerta mosorensis in a rock crack. It was tempted out with a grass stem and that all important photo was obtained.

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All in all and in spite of the initial complications, a brilliant trip with 24 species being found, 8 of which were new for us.
Clive Brignull
 
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Re: Montenegro 22nd-29th June 2016 (Part 2)

Postby Joshua Smith » Sun Jul 17, 2016 6:04 am

Beautiful pictures, particularly of the Ursinii - I hope to get to Montenegro next year with vipers in mind.
Managed to fail to find any tortoises in Croatia this summer, so it was nice to see some in part 1, and nice to know they're doing well in the peninsular.
I'm curious, do you know if the ammodytes you found were all of the same subspecies? Some fantastic colour variation there.
Cheers for the report
Edit - I notice belatedly that you're just up the road from me - nice to meet another 'Essex herper'
Joshua Smith
 
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