Wow. Markus, this looks like an incredibly successful trip. Congrats! Is there anything that you wanted to see and that you didn't find?
It really was Thomas, far more succesful than I imagined before!
And sure we also missed a few species, frogs, Malpolon in west of Liguria, also no N. tessellata and Z. longissimus, but we've been busy enough with our finds, so we really can not complain...
As for the turcicus, I would have preferred to photograph it without direct sunlight because I assume that it has been flipped. By the way: Does anybody ever have seen turcicus out by daylight?
I'm not sure with the turcicus anymore, we have seen several geckos basking in the morning and I don't think all of them were Tarentola... Maybe Kai rembers?
Of course we have seen both of them at night too!
On we go with some more pictures from the Piemont-area:
after cruising around on some narrow streets (again) and a bit of hiking through really nice alpine habitat we came across the first herps...
Coronella austriaca by Markus Oulehla, auf
Flickr
Coronella austriaca by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Like in the last days wind came up again and brought some clouds, so not the best weather to enjoy basking... we move on trying to reach another montainside, what turned out to be the right choice
Kai found this little guy on it's way home from breakfast...
Vipera walser by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Vipera walser by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Vipera walser by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
sun came out again....
Vipera walser by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Vipera walser by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Last day and to make the loong way home a bit more enjoyable we stopped in south tyrol, met a friend of mine and went out to look for (actually ammodytes, but as we didn't find them lets generally say) snakes
beside a nice brown whip snake and a young smooth snake we found this black grass snake, pretty cool
Natrix natrix by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
also the wall lizards were really curios and I could get quite close...
Podarcis muralis muralis by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
On my way through the slopes, a butterfly followed me for a while always I moved on he came after me, landing on a flower right in front, so after the third time I took a picture of it, which is a nice end for my report here, I think
Iphiclides podalirius by Markus Oulehla, auf Flickr
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
regards
Markus