continuance from......
http://www.fieldherping.eu/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=752
Friday, May 20th late evening we arrived from France in the Berner Oberland, Switzerland.
Saturday morning slowly all the participiants of the "mountain weekend" from the "Terrarienverein Mittelland" came up too.
The weather was very nice. only a few clouds on the mostly blue sky.
Therefore we all have been very expectant to find many vipers!
Short after we started walking (11:00 a.m.) we spotted the first Vipera aspis aspis (formerly V. a. atra). A black female in shedding stage.
The next herp was a basking slow worm, Anguis fragilis
Within approx. two hours we saw many more, all black and with blue eyes.
A Coronella austriaca with shedding problems was the next observation.
looking more close on it, it was full up to the throat with food, probabely an asp viper
Again we saw more asp vipers, but only two "normal" ones, a brown female and a silvergrey male, unfortunately also in shedding stage.
During a short walk at higher altitude 2 of the participiants found two Vipera berus. I have been far away from them - so no pics.
In the afternoon many clouds came up and it began to rain. Time for the Salamandra atra to come out.
In the night I showed the participiants a powerpoint presentation from our trip to Morocco in Spring 2010.
Next morning the weather has been not so fine. Anyway, we drove up to higher elevations, where Vipera aspis is replaced by Vipera berus.
Erika Kappeler, climbing like a chamois found a last year youngster.
Around noon Freddy and Erika Kappeler invited all to a barbeque at the aspis habitat.
It was a very nice weekend in the Berner Oberland. All together we found 30 Vipera aspis (maybe a few double counted in the morning and afternoon, but not on sunday), 3 Vipera berus, 2 slow worms and 2 Coronella austriaca. Unfortunately most of the snakes have been short before shedding and showed not so nice colours during our stay.
Here again, I would like to say thanks to Erika and Freddy, and all the others for this nice weekend!
Mario