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Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 3:27 pm
by Lennart Schmid
As soon as temperatures began rising in april, a friend of mine and I headed to Slovenia for a fairly early start to our herping season. Shortly after arriving at the first habitat, we found 1 Vammo and many P. muralis aswell as L. viridis, H.viridiflavus and N.tesselata.
The night was spent at a spot near a beautiful creek and during a cold beer in the evening we observed a young N. natrix hunting in a small pool, along with Bombina, Salamandra and some mating B.bufo.
It was a good first day.

ImageVipera ammodytes in situ by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
ImageLacerta viridis by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

After an exhausting and luckless second day, we moved to the second habitat and soon found a couple Vammos and even a V.aspis. In this habitat we were able to film the mating of V.ammodytes.
We also saw 2 Z.longissimus there. The ammodytes on the picture was the biggest one Ive ever seen, must have been around 75cm long, a real monster!

ImageVipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
ImageVipera aspis francisciredi by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

Our third and final stop was a habitat with a beautiful view to a couple of snowy mountains. The ammodytes population wasn´t as dense here, as the ones at the first habitats, but we wanted a picture in this great scenery and our gamble paid off with a semi adult individual on our firstday there. On the second day we found another, smaller ammodytes with beautiful orange coloration.

ImageVipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
ImageVipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

Herpwise it was a great trip, but the landscapes along our way are even as mentionable as the herps, so heres a couple of images shot on this trip:

ImageSlovenia 2018 by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
ImageWaterfall, Slovenia by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
ImageSlovenia 2018 by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

Our total observations were:
8 Vipera ammodytes
1 Vipera aspis
2 Zamenis longissimus
3 Hierophis viridiflavus
4 Natrix tesselata
1 Natrix natrix
50+ Podarcis muralis
around 10 Lacerta viridis
15+ Bombina variegata
10+ Bufo bufo
2 Salamandra salamandra

Thank you all for reading my short report, I hope you have enjoyed it! :)

Re: Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 4:00 pm
by Mario Schweiger
very nice pictures Paul - made by your friend :lol:
and yes, it seems it was a nice early spring trip

Re: Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:09 am
by Pablo Deschepper
Thanks for sharing! That's not a bad haul! Slovenia is stunningly beautiful.

Re: Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:11 am
by Urban Dajčman
Hi, love the great pictures of the animals and landscapes. I was just wondering about the N. helvetica.
I believe all of the Natrix natrix in Slovenia belong to the natrix/persa subspecies?

Re: Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 12:34 pm
by Lennart Schmid
Urban Dajčman wrote:Hi, love the great pictures of the animals and landscapes. I was just wondering about the N. helvetica.
I believe all of the Natrix natrix in Slovenia belong to the natrix/persa subspecies?


Yes your right about that, Niklas Banowski has assured me of that aswell, so I´ve changed it in the report, not sure why I thought helvetica in the first place :D.

Re: Slovenia in april 2018

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:48 pm
by Frédéric Seyffarth
A good "short" report as you wrote, short but interesting! Have to say like Mario that your pictures are really good!
Thanks a lot for sharing this!