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Czech republic is finally awake too...

Aaah blue frogs , love these guys.

In Corsica, spring is here for some time now :






Robin

Nice photos guys !

Again I had bad timing this year for totally blue arvalis

Tomas Klacek wrote:Czech republic is finally awake too...

Wow Tomas, I love these blue arvalis. I highly envy you, because I still haven't seen this species myself, even not an ordinary brown individual.

Thomas Reich wrote:Wow Tomas, I love these blue arvalis. I highly envy you, because I still
haven't seen this species myself, even not an ordinary brown individual.

I missed them this year in my quarters (you know where.) They were seen on the 18th of March
(not by me), but in very small quantities (just a single place, some 10 times 20 meters of water,
and nowhere else.) And that was it, for this year. Nothing else, before or later. A bad year.
BTW, on the next day, the 19th of March, I went elsewhere, to the north of Croatia, to see the
first VAMMOS coming out of hibernation. Sighted four, caught and photographed two. My first
VAMMOS in mid-March (in continental climate.)

Good to see someone had some nice blue arvalis this year!
Seemingly a bad year for arvalis here as well. Don't know why.
Niklas, I see you guys also have trouble with arvalis eggs and fungi...

Thanks guys, I´m glad you like it!
This time it was a little bit funny. In last couple of years I made a huge effort to see a single blue arvalis with minimal success. This time, due to lack of free time, I tried my luck only once (this weekend). I arrived to a pond friday evening, it was already dark. But between noisy temporaria croaking I clearly heard at least one arvalis male. I returned back early morning, first males were already waiting in the water and the others were literally jumping through the forest to the water. Afternoon first females joined them. Spawns appeared in Saturday and that´s it. Friends of mine, who checked the pond on Monday saw just a few last bluish males.
It´s all about timing and luck

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Good to see someone had some nice blue arvalis this year!
Seemingly a bad year for arvalis here as well. Don't know why.

I have a suggestion why this year might be "bad" for R. arvalis.
Since I missed it three years in a row I asked some dutch friends to call me when they start. So it seems that the spawing period was splitted into two parts, one in the middle of february, which stopped in cause of very cold temperatures and the second one in the middle of march. In march we found tadpoles already. Maybe the splitted spawningperiod is the reason why it seems to be not a good year for them. Less males less blue?!?! I don't know just an idea.

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Niklas, I see you guys also have trouble with arvalis eggs and fungi...

Yes, luckily just a few eggs seemed to diseast by fungi.. I disinfected my shoes after leaving the habitat, I always do it especially when I visit the dutch border.

Tomas Klacek wrote:It´s all about timing and luck

In the last few years it seems to have been "something" much more than just "timing and luck", I would say.
I don't have any clue. Those people who were at the right place at the right time have not repeated their
(or mine, or anyone's...) previous experiences. I have no explanation for that.