With the bad weather and slow start of the season this year the forum is becoming less and less European, so I decided to share some of my finds from around Barcelona to bring back the .eu in fieldherping.eu.
We arrived in Barcelona in October last year and while we were staying in our temporary accommodation obviously I decided to check the local parks. Tarentola were easy to find during the day under stones and ruble from demolished buildings. I found an empty egg and a few newborns along with the adults.
Then we moved to our permanent accommodation on the other side of the Collserola mountain and then the long wait for the winter to end began. I didn't really know what I would find in the area but being a place that I've never visited almost all species would have been new and exciting for me. This winter turned out to be unusually cold for this part of Europe, and we even got a centimeter or two of snow for a couple of days. It was raining a lot and even though there were warm days the nights were still very cold, so I couldn't find any amphibians. The only species active more or less on sunny days throughout the winter was Podarcis liolepis.
But then the almonds and other trees started to blossom along with other flowers including some early orchids, the temperatures got above 20 C which apparently is what the Mediterranean species need in order to get active, and a couple of days ago things started to stir. Large psammodromus were now out basking still covered in mud from their hibernaculas and I saw a nice young male of Malpolon exploring the surroundings of a footpath bordered by some trees and shrubs. We went back to the same spot the next day and I caught a large male. It took me about fifteen minutes to get him out of a tangle of thorny bushes after which my arms looked like I've been fighting a gang of angry street cats but it was all worth it. After I, my wife and my three year old daughter admired him for a while I let him go in the same bushes that I caught him. After about an hour I just passed by the spot curious to see if there would be more snakes and he was there again basking on the same spot – brave experienced guy that obviously wouldn't give up his territory because of some annoying humans.
Finally I'm sharing this photo of an individual which has to be 100% P. liolepis but I couldn't help but notice the features matching P. hispanicus which is found hundreds of miles to the south from here – very small size, dorsal line that forks in two just after the neck, no green on back, no blue scales on the flanks...He looks a bit drab and dirty because he hasn't shed yet but I'm sure I can see these features and yet he has to be liolepis...