Hi everyone,
As usually, posting my trip reports takes some time. But still better late than never
So, with my friend Yannick Francioli, we had planned a 4-5 days trip to Montenegro. I had already put my days off at work and when it was time to book the flight and accommodation...well, obviously, as you understood from the title, we had to change our plans because of the weather. It was expected to rain there just during the days we had planned to come... So we had to make a quick and intelligent change and Israel came out as a very good alternative solution. We took contact with Aviad Bar who confirmed us what we thought: Israel is a very safe place (as long as you avoid the sensitive areas obviously) and a great place to herp. The only thing left was to convince my wife that it was safe which took some time but somehow I managed to do it
Although our preparation could have been better, we flew to Tel-Aviv on the 21st of April and met with Aviad and Guy Haimovich there. I take the opportunity to thank them both again very very much because it's thanks to them that our trip was so successful. Until the 25th, we've travelled with a rental car to the South, visited the surroundings of Eilat, the Negev desert and all parts in between that we could and I can confirm all what I had seen before from previous trip reports: Israel is a herping paradise! Now enough words, let's get to the pictures!
Now a pretty stunning scene happened in front of us. Unfortunately, we indirectly played a role as you'll understand. First, the actors:
We released the Lytorhynchus without really paying attention to where and how (actually a few meters away from the bush in which the spider was) and just when we were about to move forward, I lit up the place and noticed that the Lytorhynchus was doing some very strange moves. It seemed to have some spasms and wasn't moving normally. I came closer and understood why...
The poor guy had escaped right in the middle of the spider web! It was obviously already too late for us to do anything for him so all we could do was to take some impressive pictures.
On the way back to the car, we still managed to find some more Cerastes vipera but unfortunately, we missed the Cerastes cerastes.
And on the road, another unexpected surprise crossed the road in front of us: