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During a particularly busy work period, I managed to snatch a few days away in Hungary with some birding and mammal trapping friends.. It was my third visit to this country and I desperately wanted to tick a long term nemesis of mine, pelobates fuscus..

The weather that greeted us on arrival was poor to say the least, and remained so for the duration of the trip.. as the temps were relatively low, and sunshine was very sparse, few reptiles were seen.. but a good number of amphibians…

A visit to catch up with Balint at the Ursinii project gave good views of mating ursinii. Sadly captive, not wild.. and as the weather was so poor, Balint took the opportunity to come birding with us.







A total of eleven amphibian species were seen, my personal highlights being pelobates fuscus and triturus dobrogicus..

Species seen:
Hyla Arborea
Rana Dalmatina
Pelophylax Ridibundus
Pelophylax Lessonae
Rana Arvalis
Salamandra Salamandra
Bufo Bufo
Bufo viridis
Bombina Bombina
Pelobates fuscus
Triturus Dobrogicus


Five reptile species, plus captive ursinii







Ablepharus Kitaibellii fitzingeri
Podarcis Taurica
Emys Orbicularis
Natrix natrix persa
Lacerta Viridis

Four species of small mammal were trapped/observed .. the highlight for me being the yellow neck mouse, Suslik and white breasted hedgehog…



Erinaceus concolor
Spermophhilus Citellus
Apodemus flavicolcis
Apodemus Sylvaticus

For the birders, a hundred and thirty species of bird.. the highlights being, great bustard, white spot blue throat, white back wood pecker and ural owl

A pleasant trip, with an OK tick list considering the weather, and always good to catch up with friends..

Most importantly two new herp ticks for my sorry little list…. One a long time nemesis, put to bed…

Looking forward to better weather and more ticking on my next tip in May…

Sweet list Paul!

I`m still drooling over that shiny dobrogicus. And all those bitchen birds...
Congratulations!

Nice! I would be interested in a belly pic of the newt, should you have one.

Congratulations with finding Pelobates fuscus Paul, finally!!! Looks like a cool trip to me with interesting mammals and birds!

Yeah, sound good to me too! With these finds I wouldn't be sorry about the bad weather Paul, besides you should be used to it I still have to thick Pelobates off my list so I'm pretty jelous!

Not bad!
Big Congrats on the spadefoot!

The tauricus looks very nice in irs spring colors
Are the Emys in the pond at Balints station?

Mario

Lovely, I totally dig that Triturus. Nice pics, especially the head shot.

Thanks for the kind comments chaps.. just need to see Pelobates cultripes now.. ( I have seen tadpoles, but dont count that)

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Nice! I would be interested in a belly pic of the newt, should you have one.

Sorry I did not take a belly shot, as I recall, the pattern on the underside seem denser and less striated than cristatus. Although patternation is so varied in this species.

Mario Schweiger wrote:Are the Emys in the pond at Balints station?

Mario, you are as always, correct the pond Balint created has doubled in size since my last visit and has populated itself with good numbers of dragonflies,amphabians, turtles and very fat natrix.

Cheers Paul

Species names should have been written using initial small letters. Btw-Do You have bustard photography?