Summer vacation, western Liguria

Summer vacation, western Liguria

Postby Kristian Munkholm » Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:59 pm

The main selling points for field reports are generally impressively long species lists, striking photography, rare and exotic species, remarkable specimens and interesting behaviour. Since I have neither to show for this year's family vacation to Liguria I didn't think I'd get around to writing a report, turns out I can't help myself.

As usual on my family vacations I've been a bit sloppy photographing animals. Balancing my desire to find herps and other animals with the interests of the rest of the family is always a concern and rather than stress about my photography stretching their patience I tend to accept I might miss shots of some critters and make do with mediocre vouchers for the rest.

...& if you're still here following that sales pitch you really have too much time on your hands.

Anyway, planning for this years family vacation started when I stumbled across ridiculously cheap airfare to Bergamo in the first ten days of July. I started looking for acommodation and eventually found a charming looking house in western Liguria, sufficiently far away that you really had to ask why we flew to Bergamo. Our house some 20 km inland was placed in – as my wife put it – one of those picturesque mountaintop villages you see driving through the Italian countryside that make you wonder how you get up there. Obviously by a narrow winding road cutting through the olive groves where you have to use your horn before each bend and scores of wall lizards love to bask in the morning.

Our lodgings were a hundred year old house with meter thick walls built around massive dark oak beams, spacious, cool even in the heat of summer and without a/c and with a nice medieval feel to it. The view across the valley was spectacular, the terrace and garden a perfect spot to relax over breakfast or with a glass of wine and a nice simple home cooked meal prepared from delicious local produce in the evening with same omnipresent common wall lizards (affectionately all dubbed ”Bob” by the kids) scurrying about and the children playing on the lawn.

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The house

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Bob * 2, aka Podarcis muralis

Apart from the wall lizards beautiful butterflies, grasshoppers, weird jumping bristletails and other cool bugs were out by day. Come nightfall the fire flies, huge common toads, moorish geckoes, scorpions, stag and rhinoceros beetles came out while herds of wild boar noisily rumaged about the forest deafening out the distant choruses of Balkan water frogs from the valley far below. The only other sounds in our peaceful haven – apart from the occasional honking car coming up the mountainside – came from the cicadas and church bells (the tiny village of perhaps 15 houses had two churches one of which rang the bells every half hour day and night!).

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Archaeognatha sp.

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Tarentola mauritanica

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Bufo bufo

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Euscorpius sp.

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Lucanus cervus

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Oryctes nasicornis

I went for several walks, day and night, in the surroundings and was a bit disappointed not to find any snakes, but hey, this wasn't a herping trip, right?

The house served as an excellent base for excursions, going to the beach, bathing in the river, hiking in the Alps, visiting spectacular caves as well as the local (251st annual!) garlic festival and even spending a day in the absurd and decadent reservation known as Monaco for the benefit of my daughter.

Along the way in spite of the heat wave we chanced upon a few more common herps. Introduced Balkan water frogs were abundant at every body of water, seemingly completely outcompeting the native ranids. My family found it more than a little silly when I suddenly showed up with a large one in the pocket of my swimming trunks one day as we were bathing in the river.

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Pelophylax kurtmuelleri

The same spot also offered up a nice little viperine snake. Despite their abundance I was very happy with the find.

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Natrix maura

Western green lizards showed up here and there, most numerously in the Alps. I only got one semi-decent picture of a dull female, as generally they were too shy and alert. The one time I got into perfect position up and close with a beautifully posing bright green large male, Gustav came charging down the mountainside scaring it off just as I was about to press the trigger.

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Lacerta bilineata

Shortly afterwards I heard what sounded either as a couple having a very nice time in a very public place or someone in exceptionally, worryingly poor form struggling to make their way up the path. It proved neither, but rather a somewhat large boned lady who had fallen and broken her ankle. We moved her into the shade and called for help. While I alerted her friend in the village below my family stayed with her. I came back up and we waited for the rescue team together. It all took a couple of hours before she was off the mountain and we were back down.

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Neotinea ustulata

I found a few slow worms as well. Not wanting to tempt myself beyond my means I had been a bit sloppy in my preparations and hadn't checked the papers. Thinking the slow worms were just the same Anguis fragilis I knew from home I didn't pay them much attention only taking quick voucher shots, even of the record sized mother in the Alps. It was only after I came home I checked the ranges and discovered they were all Italian slow worms, , a new species for me.

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Anguis veronensis

Near the sea some 20 km down the valley from our house was a nice area of ponds, cliffs and open woodlands at an abandoned quarry. It is known especially for its population of the endangered endemic Ligurian subspecies ingauna of the European pond turtle but it is also home to several other species of herps. My restless pace sometimes being a bit too much for the rest of the family on a couple of mornings I would go there to search for an hour or so while they hung out on the terrace playing, reading, drawing, drinking coffee and whatnot.

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Iphiclides podalirius

I found a single Emys, but it was very shy and I only got a single shot of it through the reeds where I myself can't even find it now.

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Emys orbicularis ingauna (I can't find it either)

Likewise, the only snake I encountered, a lifer subadult western Montpellier snake, Malpolon monspessulanus, shot away into the dense thorny shrubs before I could get a shot off or my hands on it. I found several Balkan water frogs, common wall lizards, western green lizards and Italian slow worms at the locality while searching in vain for ocellated lizards. One morning I heard a stripeless treefrog, Hyla meridionalis, calling repeatedly from the bushes but it stopped whenever I came within perhaps 5-6 meters of it and I never found it.

The only species I explicitly targeted on the trip was the North-west Italian cave salamander, Speleomantes strinatii. Plethodontid salamanders are in Europe represented only by the genus Speleomantes, closely related to the Californian Hydromantes with whom they were previously lumped. The genus is restricted in range to Italy with four species endemic to Sardinia and the remaining three distributed in an arc across north central Italy from the south western edge of Alps to the central Apennines, the north western most, strinatii, just crossing the border into France. Largely cave dwelling they are confined to karst regions and as such, they are quite common along the western Ligurian coastal strip. I had received a tip from Jeroen about a cave and I was happy to find a good population. I was too stressed out to take good pictures, though, as Pauline had a hissy fit after being scorched by the sun, torn by brambles and stung by an ant.

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Speleomantes cave

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Speleomantes strinatii

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I came upon a couple of other likely looking salamander spots but hiking the Alps I hadn't thought to bring my flashlight so all I could see in the darkness were the bats I accidentally flushed out and later on, following a little incident with an overheated rental car, we really just wanted to get back to the house so we never got around to exploring the caves we passed.

On this final day we decided to go to horseback riding at a nearby ranch. Lacking wifi at our house we hadn't checked whether the ranch was open, just assumed it was. On our way, we passed a sign about the salamanders in a village square. I was set on exploring on our way back. We had some trouble finding the ranch but finally found a small sign by a dirt road going up the mountainside. 50 meters up the road the car came to a halt. I started the car again, hand brake pulled to gain traction on the steep slope. Immediately foul smelling smoke rose from the hood and the engine died. The only phone we had brought was mine and it wasn't working so I started walking towards the ranch for help, my wife and kids staying at the car.

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Thinking it was only a couple of hundred meters I didn't even bother to bring water, despite the heat. To my surprise the road just went on and on. I soon missed my water and felt bad about leaving my family waiting but what was there to do? As the landscape opened up near the top I heard the snound of a snake slithering away into a bush. Judging by the habitat the most likely candidates seemed the western whip snake, Hierophis viridiflavus, or asp viper, Vipera aspis. It sounded like a rather slow, heavy set snake, so I'm guessing it was a viper. I didn't have the time to hang around and wait it out. I finally reached the ranch some 450 vertical meters above our car after walking about 4 km only to find it closed with no people around.

When I arrived back at the car Henriette & the kids were a little impatient but still in good spirits. A moment afterwards a passer by down on the main road stopped to help us. We borrowed his phone to call Hertz' ”English speaking” assistance only to be greeted in Italian by a lady who told us she would have someone call us back within 5 minutes. 30 minutes later we called again, same result, another 30 minutes later once again...

By now we had rolled the car back down to the main road and, increasingly exasperated, we decided to try to start it to see if we could drive it slowly back into the village some 3-4 km away where our saviour's auto mechanic friend had just returned back home from his stint at the rally world cup in Finland. We made it and he went for a spin in the car with me subsequently concluding it had just overheated, the smell was only friction and we should be good to go. We thanked him and, giving up on Hertz, decided not to go through the trouble of getting a replacement car but rather taking our chances with the one we had. Back at our house we didn't need any more drama, Henriette & the kids just lazing out the final hours of afternoon while I took the car for an extra little test spin to feel confident about it before next day's drive back.

We ended the day with a well deserved melanzane parmigiana, Barolo, and other goodies on the terrace before heading back home the next morning.
Kristian Munkholm
 
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Joined: Tue May 26, 2009 2:04 pm
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country: Denmark

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