"There and Back Again," a Herper's Tale

[DutchHerp]

Hi,

As some of you know I’m in the United States because my father is in the oil business. I went abroad at age 11 and have been going back to the Netherlands every summer for a few weeks since. This is my third summer since I’ve been interested in herps, and I visit two areas during my stay. One place, known for its Eurasian Vipers (Vipera berus) and Smooth Snakes (Coronella austriaca) – a rare snake – I only visit once when my dad is there as well and I do some birding then too. The bird photos that I have included are not cropped/edited simply because I’m too lazy. None of these photos are edited anyway, also for the same reason.

In my very limited experience of only two previous summers, I have concluded (rather hastily, as a result) that one only has a very small window to see these snakes in high numbers. You can start seeing them when it warms in the morning, but when the temperature hits about 20ºC the numbers go down. My conclusion is that they have warmed up sufficiently to go back under cover – which is exceptional in their habitat, snakes literally disappear right in front of me when they go under some grass – as opposed to when they’re forced to bask if they want to be active when temperatures just start going up.

Having said this, I only went into the field three times! I’m quite ashamed, but I’ve been busy with friends, family, and sleeping in… LOL.

The first day was June 23, when I got on my bike to go to my regular spot. Some shots of the way there.





Habitat



It’s military terrain



Found lots of frogs. This first one is a Common Frog (Rana temporaria)



These are all various green frogs. The two species of green frogs in the country are extremely hard to distinguish… if anybody knows which one it is (or a possible very common hybrid between the two!) let me know.









Zigzag (Vipera berus)! This one got away really quickly, I didn’t want to bother her.



My dad and I got two chances to go into the field. We went to the place previously mentioned with the adders and smooth snakes. On June 30 we rose early and got there when it was quite cool, resulting in some birding rather than being completely focused on the herps.

The first snake I found actually sucked. It was behind a brush, and I had a split second to identify it, at which I failed. It might have just been an adder, but my gut told me it was a smooth snake. Of course, the snake slipped under the brush and escaped.

Habitat







Some birds

Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) male







Female



Linnet (Carduelis cannabina)



Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra)





Now for the herps

Moor Frog (Rana arvalis)





A particularly attractive male zigzag was seen

Eurasian Adder (Vipera berus)



He went under the grass (never to be seen again, of course) but fortunately we found another one a minute later. He was more cooperative.



Typically I don’t like photographs like the above when part of the snake is out of the photo, but in this case I actually did… strange. Comments?



We also found two young Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes)







And a nice orchid