Central France (2012)

[Sandra Panienka]

Cool stuff, I somehow missed out on that post. I love the little vipers, they look really cute. And I also love the H. viridiflavus. They are a cool looking species and I haven't had the chance to see one yet in the wild. I really should make a trip further south one day.

[Guillaume Gomard]

Hi,

Yesterday I went to the same place as in my previous post. The weather conditions were pretty good: 20°C, no wind and some clouds. Comparing to the last time, I found many juvenile N.maura and also a lot of young common toads. Vipera aspis should occur in this spot but I couldn't find a single one (the growing vegetation makes this task even harder!). On the contrary, H.viridiflavus are very common and it's always a great pleasure to photograph them. Below are the pictures of this short herping session (from 9a.m to 11a.m) with some "tongue action":

Guillaume

[Sandra Panienka]

Sweet pics. The tongue action is indeed pretty cool. Love the front shot of that one viridiflavus flicking its tongue.

[Guillaume Gomard]

Thanks Sandra.

Today I was out again for only 2 hours (end of the afternoon) at a usual Hierophis spot ...but unfortunately no snake. Instead, I found some pretty Podarcis:

[Bobby Bok]

The first Podarcis is really fantastic, never seen such a brightly coloured individual!

[Peter Oefinger]

Instead, I found some pretty Podarcis:

Very nice, indeed: I saw this black-greenish-yellow colours only once - in western France (Cerdagne):

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Nearly tiliguerta or something...

[Guillaume Gomard]

New short herping session this morning since it's too hot starting 11a.m (close to 30°C!). Between 8a.m and 11a.m, I could observe some Podarcis (I was able to find again the tiliguerta-like specimen, you will recognize it on the pictures below ) and also 3 Hierophis viridiflavus which are already very active at 9 a.m. Due to the vegetation, those snakes disappear quickly in the bushes so the best time to take decent pictures is when they are basking on rocks:

Guillaume

[Peter Oefinger]

very nice - also the last one with the white belly...

[Guillaume Gomard]

Today's observation: A mid-grown H.viridiflavus resting in the middle of a trail (in the forest, so protected from the rain we had this afternoon). After 30s of inactivity, the snake started to escape and disappeared in less than 5s...Below are some shots I managed to take:

Guillaume