fieldherping.eu

Hi,

Whenever I come to carinthia I spend some time in the field.
I like to see the same species as around vienna in different habitats and I really like herping for Vipera ammodytes, which I don't find in my area

My first short-trip this year was in may, I met a friend of mine at Villach and we drove to some dice snake-spots at the river "Gail".
It was cool in the morning and the sky was quite cloudy, but when the sun came through it became warm, so good conditions and what a result...

In the morning 2 juvenile aesculapian snakes, both well fed...



A little later we found the first dice snakes, Natrix tessellata



32 individuals in about 2 hours ( ~2/3 of them females...)











We also saw lots of green lizards, Lacerta viridis, both sex, in all sizes...








So that was an outstanding day, I've been to this spot some times during the last summers, always seen some specimes but never that much!!!



A week ago a was in Carinthia again. This time we wanted to see some long-nosed vipers. I really like the light grey colored ammodytes from carinthia, much nicer than all the red and yellow local variants, but thats just my opinion
The wheather was quite hot, so we reached the scree sclopes in the later morning and spoted the first vipers (all females) basking in the sun









Second, darker female, just a few meters further...



After we found the first vipers basking in the sun, it became hotter so we had a closer look at the shady places...













Carinthia is a great place for herping, various species and very diverse habitats, so absolutely worth visiting...

regards

The "herp in habitat" shots were my favourites.
Keep those coming.

Nice in-situ shots of Lacerta and Natrix tessellata. Thanks for posting...

Nice finds and pictures! Can I ask which lenses did you use for these wide-angle shots like the last one?

Markus Oulehla wrote:Hi,

Now that is a spectacular lizard!

Thank you,
I use a Nikon D90 with Micro Nikkor 40mm for the close ups. The wide-angel shots are with the micro nikkor with a Opteka HD² 0.20X adapter.
I wanted to try some wide-angel shots without spending lots of money at the begining, so looked through the web and got it via amazon for ~66€, really like it

Regards
Markus

Hi,
and again I spent some time in carinthia, one weekend in september and the last 4 days too.
We decided to look for Vipera ammodytes again, but want to try some different spots.
We drove to the area around the Wörthersee. It was quite hot, so not the best weather, but we've been lucky at some shady scree slopes...



Then, in a whole in a concrete block a nice viper taking a bath




The next places were some ruins in the area of the Lavanttal...









another place



with lots of Mantis religiosa (brown and green)



and another little viper






The last days have been quite cold, with some sunny hours, so we took our chance and had a look in the area around the Wörthersee again...
We didn't exept to see many snakes, so we were really suprised to see the first individual after 10 steps away from the car

















we saw 8 individuals all in all (5 adults and 3 juveniles)




On the second day we were lucky again...
nice female





a big male






and another male




It was a great time, as always in carintha and I'm really looking forward to vistit this spots in spring again
enjoy the pictures

regards
Markus

Great photography and I especially liked the basking tessellata and L. viridis pictures.

Very nice and good shots of ammos, showing the colour variety in such a small place like southern Carinthia

Mario

So if I see this pictures I have to think about my plans for 2014