First Herps of 2012

[Michal Szkudlarek]

Today in my area R. esculenta complex, P. fuscus and B. bufo were calling. Seems that R. temporaria have finished mating- only spawn was observed.

[Rok Grzelj]

For all viper haters (Bobby )
First female of the year... and NOT melanistic

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

grrrrrrrrrrrrr see you soon...

I have near my home a little population of Vipera aspis. I was going at the begenning of march but nothing. Today I saw 4 males, 1 adult and 1 subadult female on about 100 meters.
Most of the snakes had some soil (ground, terre?) under the skin.
They live near a marsh on a band of cane of 5 meters wide and 100 meters long.









and the biotop:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpnyaq_biotope-vipera-aspis_animals

[Kristian Munkholm]

OK... for the adder boys I'll throw in my first female of the year as well - from Friday:



And for a bit of balance, one of my first moor frogs of the year - from Thursday.



The only anurans to have bred yet around here are dalmatina. temporaria have just gathered in my local ditch and started calling. They'll be breeding within a couple of days, bufo and arvalis can't be far behind - looking forward to some blues

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

today, just coming back from the same spot as yesterday.
6-7 Vipera aspis (the same orange female as yesterday, for the others it's difficult to say how many and if they were some same because I passed and returned 1 hour later), very few eggs (1 m2) of Rana temporaria, 1 Bufo bufo singing, 2 Bombina variegata, 1 Lissotriton helveticus male.
Here it's very dry, very poor of amphibians this year, maybe later ?

[Daniel Kane]

Now at home for three weeks I went to my local site today; I saw one female adder and three viviparous lizard.

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

nice !

[Vlad Cioflec]

I was a little sick this weekend so no roadtrip... But when i took our daughter to the swings on Sunday i noticed this next to the sidewalk:

And after doing what comes natural to any herper, i saw six Green Toads under it; my best flip EVER! Five of them were kind enough to stick around for a crappy cellphone record shot.

Cheers!

[Kevin Byrnes]

Finally on Friday I managed to get out in the field and visited a reasonably local hot spot for reptiles. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful spring mornng as we headed south.I was hoping to see many Adders sunning themselves amongst the gorse bushes but was surprised to only find 4, I am usually tripping over them at this site. There was a school trip of youngsters running around the site so that may have disturbed them. However, we did manage to see 3 mating balls of Grass snakes totalling about 30 individuals, one Slow worm, 4 Adders and several Common lizards.

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Still waiting for my first Natrix! All I found was just berus!!!