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LOCAL OBSERVATIONS 2008 - February
Wednesday 27th February 2008
Conditions: cloudy.
Temperature : 17 C
Time of observations: 18h00 to 19h00I recently purchased a fishing top with many pockets to carry my things around easier then my one strap bag, that bag kept on falling in the way when I bent down to lift stones !
So I had to walk the dog and I took my new top with my gear in case I saw anything, I ended up turning my dog walk into a full scale herp hunt, I kept hearing Stripeless Tree frogs (Hyla meridionalis) in the distance, so I kept on moving forward, at one point I was at the river where I found 3 Common toads (Bufo bufo) and a Viperine snake (Natrix maura), heading home I started to hear the frogs louder and louder, so I followed my ears and ended up asking someone if I could go into their garden and photograph the frogs, he kindly allowed me to do so:
Male Common toad (Bufo bufo) - © Daniel Phillips
Viperine snake (Natrix maura) - © Daniel Phillips
Male Common toad (Bufo bufo) - © Daniel Phillips
Male Common toad (Bufo bufo) - © Daniel Phillips
Female Stripeless Tree frog (Hyla meridionalis) - © Daniel Phillips
Male Stripeless Tree frog (Hyla meridionalis) - © Daniel Phillips
Male Stripeless Tree frog (Hyla meridionalis) - © Daniel Phillips
Male Stripeless Tree frog (Hyla meridionalis) singing - © Daniel Phillips
Male Stripeless Tree frog (Hyla meridionalis) singing - © Daniel Phillips
Friday 22nd February 2008
Conditions: Blue skies.
Temperature : 22 C
Time of observations: 15h00 to 16h00It has been quite warm for two days now and so i went out to see if I could find anything, for ages there was no sign of anything even rushing into the bushes, and wanting to get a move on I decided to run a bit to my malpolon hotspot 2007, but only a few metres after starting to run I came across a dazzled Montpellier snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) out in the open, I was not very close so it had time to retreat into the grass, but was moving around allowing me to know it position, and after changing tree stumps and grass mounds a few times i finally got a finger or two onto the tail and halt it, searching for it's head in the dense grass was a challenge but with everything under control I proceeded to the first snake photo shoot of the year. It turned out to be a male, measuring around 107 cm long, but it was very seriously scarred along the neck and on the back, scares most probably inflicted by humans. On my way home, I came across a few very small Large Psammodromus (Psammodromus algirus) and one Iberian Water frog (Pelophylax perezi).
First snake of 2008 - Montpellier snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) - male - © Daniel Phillips
Habitat - © Daniel Phillips
Damaged neck of the snake - © Daniel Phillips
Same - © Daniel Phillips
Same - © Daniel Phillips
Text & images © Daniel Phillips