North Italy (Gemona) April 2022

[Marc]

Together with my dad I spent 3 days (11.-13.04) in Gemona. We also made one short stop in Slovenia and Carinthia, which were really succesful. In Italy itself, we didn't found that many herps. Many Podarcis m., one Natrix n., Anguis f. and one of my targets: The Italian agile frog. We still had a great time and also found some nice birds.

Griffon Vulture near Gemona

Black Kites chasing each other

Lacerta bilineata

Natrix natrix in situ

Bufo bufo crossing a road during midday

Urban Podarcis muralis

Vipera ammodytes habitat, but no success

Rana latastei

Rana latastei

We decided to spend one morning in Slovenia, on a very famous mountain:), to find Vipera aspis. And we were succesful.

Sunrise in Slovenia

Vipera aspis f. in situ

Podarcis muralis

On our way back home, we made another stop in Carinthia, to look for Horned nosed vipers, as we haven't found any before. This was propably one of my most successful days with Vipera a., because in total we found 10 Horned nosed vipers and most of them were really photogenic.

Lacerta viridis

Vipera ammodytes in situ

Vipera ammodytes

Very big red Vipera ammodytes in situ

Vipera ammodytes in situ

So that was a very nice ending of a nice Herping trip. defenitely have to come back to Italy, but maybe somewhere else:)

[Gerald Ochsenhofer]

Nice findings, I envy you!

[Tomas Klacek]

Cool! I accidentally stopped in this area two years ago and was really surprised by an amount of Griffon Vultures around. Then I discovered there is a Griffon conservation/ reintroduction project and a small station nearby where they still feed them. They also have some massive ammodytes there. I talked to the employee there and he told me they are all handicapped/ injured snakes from surroundings and he also recommended me some places to search for Italian ammo. But I did not have a time to go there..

[Marc]

Yeah haha the number of Vultures there is insane! Sounds nice, maybe have to visit the station next time I am there;)