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Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 6:49 pm
by Kai Kolodziej
Hello,
in July I visited Croatia with my girlfriend. We did a bit of herping, but this time our trip was more a vaccation than a real herping trip. My targets were mainly species, which I have not seen in Croatia before, the biggest was Vipera ursinii, but we failed with that one :(
But this beautiful mountain habitat, with thousends of butterflies was absolutly worth visiting. On the reptile side we found there Vipera ammodytes and Lacerta agilis bosnica, the last one was a new species for Croatia for us.
ImageDSC_7056 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr
ImageDSC_6946 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr

We also visited Lake Vrana to see Natrix tessellata var. flavescens, which is the most beautiful dice snake I have ever seen. We also watched them hunting and eating.
ImageDSC_6716 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr
ImageDSC_6648 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_7152 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_7220 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr

We also spent some time in Krk and found a small Vipera ammodytes there, and beside various lizards we saw a Hierophis carbonarius:
ImageDSC_7759 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickrhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/150 ... 775651615/

The largest part of our time was spent in Istria, and there we found Iberolacerta horvathi. This species is also new to me in Croatia and met Jürgen Gebhart. In addition to that we had nice non-herps like a stag beetle and pygmy cormorants.
ImageDSC_8576 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr
ImageDSC_8279 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageKopie - DSC_8666 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_7953 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_7706 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr

On a cloudy day we decided to look for Vipera berus berus and had success in the mountains of Croatia:
ImageDSC_8002 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_8108 by Kai Kolodzi, auf FlickrImageDSC_8052 by Kai Kolodzi, auf Flickr

We really enjoyed our time there and I am sure: I will be back ;)

cheers Kai

Re: Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:52 am
by Tycho Muijen
Nice pictures! especially like the one of V. b. berus. What where the temperatures when you were there, I was there only one week ago and temperatures reached 42 degrees (heatwave lucifer)... which resulted in very few herp-sightings..

Re: Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:10 am
by Kai Kolodziej
Hello Tycho,
to the south it was pretty hot, about 33-38°C, too hot for reptiles, even most of the lizards disappeared during the day.
In Istria it was far better, most of the time 28-32°C, much better weather and a few cloudy days. We concentrated our efforts on the cloudy days or directly after a rainy night (which wasn't that often), and spent more time swimming and relaxing in these unfavorable conditions ;)

cheers Kai

Re: Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 6:30 pm
by Evgeny Kotelevsky
Nice photos! :)

Re: Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:58 pm
by Bobby Bok
Surely have to see these yellow tessellate in the flesh once :shock: Stunning pictures as always!

Re: Croatia July 2017

PostPosted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:16 pm
by Kai Kolodziej
Thanks everybody.

@Bobby, yes they are truley stunning! And they have a pinkish tongue and are really good to observe as there are quite many of them around and in the clear water we could observe them hunting (but not succesfully) and eating.

cheers Kai