Here are my pictures from this weekend. A trip which was marked by many small (and large) incident on the way, but still a lot of field herping.
For starters; I mixed up some shedueles with public transport so I had to walk five kilometers through a boring residential erea to retrieve my car, (07-AM in the morning). When I finally retrieved the car the weather was becomming cloudy and bad (at 10:00). We had to wait several hours before the clouds had disappeared so it was worth to go out into the field, but eventually the weather became quite well.
We visited a few different areas in Odsherred Zealand. Unfortunately, we had no luck with us, especially with the snake. Actually we found very few snakes and vipers, despite a long search. So my thread today contains no "special" species or the like. But it was a super nice trip/trips anyway. We found, Natrix natrix, Vipera berus, Lacerta agilis, Anguis fragilis, Lissotriton cristatus and Rana temporaria. We also found a leech, which I enjoyed very much - I have not seen a leech since I was a child. (I can say that especially slow worms were abundant numbers, I found many, over 30+ in approx. 60 min. spend over two days).
So it was a rather unlucky fieldtrip, it is long time since I found so little - but I also had an accident which destroyed our planning:
Despite my eternal refuse to the possibility that it could ever happen; I was bitten in the hand by a Vipera berus. A story I am not proud of, but it happened accidentally. So I chose to write a little "Raport" about the bite. Perhabs somebuddy can use the knowledge for something? Images from the bite can be found below this post. It was proberly only a "small" reaction I had/have.
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The fieldtrip:
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis, this speciment was laying in the grass badly mauled, apperently it recently lost its tail and had a lot of wounds after a battle (possibly with a bird?)
Anguis fragilis - Big female
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis
Anguis fragilis, dead and rotten speciment
Bufo bufo
Bufo bufo
Some kind of fly?
Some kind of leech (Haemopis sanguisuga??)
Some kind of leech (Haemopis sanguisuga??)
Some kind of leech igle (Haemopis sanguisuga??)
Some kind of leech (Haemopis sanguisuga??)
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Lacerta agilis
Triturus cristatus
Triturus cristatus
Natrix natrix & Lacerta agilis, (great motive but unfortunatly i did not mannage to get more pictures before the Natrix disapeared).
Natrix natrix
Natrix natrix
Natrix natrix
Natrix natrix
Natrix natrix
Natrix natrix, dead speciment with broken back - it looked like somebody stepped on it.
Natrix natrix, same dead speciment - closeup.
Rana temporaria
Rana temporaria
Rana temporaria
Fulica atra
The nature:
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Bitten by a vipera berus. 23/05-2010
Today the thing that must not happen, happened. We had been out looking for snakes, (and other reptiles), for a long time but we found almost nothing. The bad weather irritated me a bit, so when my herping-buddy Christian spotted a large Natrix natrix in a rock pile, consisting of aprox. 15 very large stones, I was quick to photograph. Unfortunately the grass snake saw my movement and dissapeared. Stupid as I was I tried to lay down and stare into cracks between the stones. I thought I could see it through the pile. But when I put my hand down to find grip, I put the placed it right just across a small viper (brown female. 30cm - young speciment). In a split of a second I was bitten between my thumb and long finger.
When I saw the bitemark I realized I had been bitten. It was a accident, nothing else .. but it was a crabby accident! After I had been bitten, I took it quite easy. I had absolutely no desire to finish my started trip, so we chose to wait and continue the search. The actual bite I could not feel, it felt like a small snake, it was not bad as some might imagine.
Pictures for documentation can be found below.
Sorry for the Danish text on the pictures!
It only drew a small amount of blood, I only found a single bitehole.
This is how it looked after 5-7 minutes, my skin had begon to swell around the bite mark. I could feel a gentle but sharp pain deep in my hand.
The pain disappeared and it started to tingle a little in my hand instead. Otherwise, I thought no more about it. My skin started to get a bit white/pale around the bite.
After. 10 minutter it started to hurt again. The swelling of the bite mark had increased further.
After approximately 25 minutes my entire hand, including my fingers begon to swell tremendously.
After 47 min. my wrist was swollen, you could see it spread up the arm with approximately 5-10 cm/pr 15min. At that time my hand had become almost twice as large as the other, it was totally impossible for me to bend my fingers. Now my arm started to get a bit sore and my skin was getting very sensitive on both my arm and hand. (But it was actually not that bad and I could easily endure the swelling).
Two hours after, my hand began to sweat heavily from the palm and back of the hand. I could not really move my fingers and we began to think about if it perhaps was best to visit the hospital?
17.56 PM - Two and a halv hour after the bite we chose to visit the doctor.
I got a some antihistamins and corticosteroids for two days. Otherwise i got no further treatment at the doctor. He did however measure my blood pressure, (which was fine).
As we sat in the waiting room the swelling had moved 5-10 cm down the arm. When we came out from the doctor 15 minutes later, the swelling had moved as far as to the elbow. The swelling effect spread around. 15 cm in less than an hour.
22-22:30 PM. (7 hours efter the bite - it seemed as if the swelling had stopped spreading)
My wrist was swelled as well.
My evaluation of this particullar bite is: Since i was only suffering the bite from a single tooth, and since it was a small juvenile it can still make a terrific swelling and a minor form of pain, probably because of swelling? (In my case). I know all people react differently, so it is not something to joke about. When you consider how small the viper was. I could imagine an adult idivid could do some damage. I will now take precautions next time so this does not happen agian. So I hope you will see this as an "educational" threath, rather than debating whether it is foolish to be bitten, because i know it's stupid . But it was, as I say, accidentally. So I try to get the best out of it any way.
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Update 24 maj 2010
When i woke up the following morning my hand was precisely as swollen as shown on the last pictures, but now I can move my fingers agian. My skin is very sensitive to touching. Otherwise everything is fine.
