From May 26th to June 3rd I took part in a silvicultural oriented group tour through southern Bulgaria that was organised by a Bulgarian forest scientist, who works at the same institute as I do. Because searching for reptiles and amphibians wasn't really possible during the group travel, I subsequently added four days on my own.
I spent two days of intense searching at the Black Sea coast and two days of mainly driving from Burgas back to Sofia via the Danube area. Thanks to almost perfect "reptile weather" during most of the two search days, I was lucky to find a high number of snakes within 48 hours (9 species). Here are some pictures.
A must-see if you visit Sofia
Fresh bear tracks near Trigrad in the Rhodope Mountains
Thanks god that one was allowed to breathe
My herpetological highlights:
Darevskia praticola in a broadleaf forest in the Strandzha hills. We came here to see Rhododendron ponticum.
Darevskia next to Bufo bufo (in situ)
My most wanted! Platyceps collaris in situ
Close-up. I tried to catch it, but the little snake slippered through my fingers. So I came back the second day and...
...this time I wasn't too stupid to catch it. The snake was released after a few minutes at the exact spot where it was found.
At this spot I was searching for another highlight.
After a while I found an adult Elaphe sauromates. I had only seen juveniles and a dying adult of this species up to now.
back to freedom
Some other observations:
The very common Pseudopus apodus
Emys orbicularis was surprisingly numerous, too.
Male Vipera ammodytes in the herbs
A female 30 meters away
Mating season I
Mating season II
Dolichophis caspius was seen several times.
One of three Zamenis longissimus
During the search for Anguis colchica, which would have been a new species for me, I found a small Xerotyphlops vermicularis. Anguis was only found DOR.
A wonderful wetland that I had detected on Google Earth when preparing the searches.
Here I found Hyla orientalis, a new species for me
This fat Natrix had just caught a marsh frog.
Triturus ivanbureschi, another new species for my photo collection, from a different pond
One of several bunches of bats that were hanging in abandoned buildings. I identified at least 2 different species in this bunch.
Zerynthia polyxena
Argynnis pandora
Aporia crataegi
Apatura cf. metis
Danube river near Tutrakan
I once again failed to find Triturus dobrogicus , but a lot of Pelobates were out. I think it should be fuscus, isn't it?
Rana dalmatina
Bombina bombina
Bufotes viridis
On the way back to Sofia I made a random stop. This place turned out to be a top site for European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus).
At least 20-30 individuals were running around in a close distance.
I very much liked to herp in Bulgarias beautiful landscapes, where still a lot of nature is left. I really hope that this will also be the case in the further future.