First adder of 2011 and its black!

[Paul Lambourne]

At last the weather has warmed enough for some decent UK herping.. I went out to some of my usual berus sites on Friday.. a bit tired as I had not long been home from the Canary islands, but I was desperate to see some local snakes..the weather had reached an unbarable 9 degrees and was overcast. I was not hopeful but on site for less than ten minutes and I saw a stunning black berus coiled under blackberry,next to some tin refugia.. I was so excited that my frantic attemps to set my camera up flushed the stunning animal.. I sat thinking that a lesson had been learnt.. even if you are not expecting anything, have your kit sorted! As I progressed around the site I saw another very wary berus basking on a bank, it left when I was still a good distance away..

I headed home very happy and called Illian, we had arranged to meet up on Saturday and I hoped to show him some good sites for berus, Lissotriton helveticus and Triturus cristatus, as these were needed ticks for him.. they are hard to find in Bulgaria!

I picked Illian up and we headed for a number of sites all over Kent,I must admit I did feel a bit of pressure, trying to locate a number of species, to help a friend see new animals and show off some of the herps from my home country (we dont have many ) I will let Illian give you the details of the trip in his own report.. I will however leave you with some berus pictures

We had a top day.. if anybody is visiting the UK and would like to get some herping in,please feel free to get in touch and meet up.

[Mario Schweiger]

Great !
I will try it here in Salzburg this afternoon. Ground seems to be not frozen since 1 or 2 days - at least around my house.
Weather is cloudy (full overcast) but warm.

[Ilian Velikov]

We did had a top day! Not only that I thicked off two new species but I saw a beautiful black adder! And all thanks to Paul who was very kind and took me to this nice spots and even cought the newts for me ! I'll be posting the whole story here soon!

[Ilian Velikov]

I will let Illian give you the details of the trip in his own report..

Here it is
http://www.fieldherping.eu/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=644

[Jürgen Gebhart]

WOW!!!
The first pic showed that this is a pretty nice one!!!
Sadly you use the flash light for the next ones.
but anyway pretty cool!!!