A weekend field trip:
The whole field trip was marked by many small incidents on the way, but still the day presented lot of wonderful field herping as well.
For starters; when I woke up I misread the public transport schedules so I had to walk five kilometers through a boring residential area to retrieve my car, (07am in the morning). When I finally retrieved the car the weather was starting to get cloudy and foggy. (Approx. 10:00am). We had to wait several hours before the clouds had disappeared so it was worth to go out into the field, but eventually the weather became quite well. We visited a few different areas in Odsherred Zealand. Unfortunately, we had no luck with us this day, especially with the snakes. Actually we found very few snakes and vipers, despite a long search. But it was a nice trip anyway.
(We where out herping 2 days in a row, therefore this report contains pictures from the 23-24 May 2010).
We visited the areas of Nykøbing, Rørvig, Ulkerup og Lumsås.
We found 6 species; Natrix natrix, Vipera berus, Lacerta agilis, Bufo bufo, Rana temporaria & Triturus cristatus.
Despite my eternal refuse to the possibility that it could ever happen; I was bitten in the hand by a Vipera berus, (common adder), that day.
I am not proud of this story, but it happened accidentally. So based on the personal experiences I had, I chose to write a little "Raport" about the bite.
You can see the bite-report here: http://herp-spot.weebly.com/bitten-by-a-v-berus.html
The whole field trip was marked by many small incidents on the way, but still the day presented lot of wonderful field herping as well.
For starters; when I woke up I misread the public transport schedules so I had to walk five kilometers through a boring residential area to retrieve my car, (07am in the morning). When I finally retrieved the car the weather was starting to get cloudy and foggy. (Approx. 10:00am). We had to wait several hours before the clouds had disappeared so it was worth to go out into the field, but eventually the weather became quite well. We visited a few different areas in Odsherred Zealand. Unfortunately, we had no luck with us this day, especially with the snakes. Actually we found very few snakes and vipers, despite a long search. But it was a nice trip anyway.
(We where out herping 2 days in a row, therefore this report contains pictures from the 23-24 May 2010).
We visited the areas of Nykøbing, Rørvig, Ulkerup og Lumsås.
We found 6 species; Natrix natrix, Vipera berus, Lacerta agilis, Bufo bufo, Rana temporaria & Triturus cristatus.
Despite my eternal refuse to the possibility that it could ever happen; I was bitten in the hand by a Vipera berus, (common adder), that day.
I am not proud of this story, but it happened accidentally. So based on the personal experiences I had, I chose to write a little "Raport" about the bite.
You can see the bite-report here: http://herp-spot.weebly.com/bitten-by-a-v-berus.html
NB: My website decompress my pictures rappidly, therefore the quality is not as high as in reality. Uploaded pictures on this page tend to become indistinct and blurred.
I have the pictures in high resolution. If you need to borrow one of my pictures for scientific purposes, simply send me a mail.
Anguis fragilis, slow-worms:
Anguis fragilis equals everywhere. It is not hard to guess that the slow-worm is one of the most numerous reptiles in Denmark. Under every tenth piece of bark, stone or stump there is a Anguis fragilis if you look the right places. Do a quick review trough stony grassland and you can find them basking in the sun, it's not a tough job to find this species in Danmark. I have spent a total of two hours over two days where I searched for slow-worms. During those two hours I have approx. found 40 specimens. The number of Anguis fragilis I find is almost increasing every year, (after my experience). I often find offspring and brood, which is always a nice thing. I find the number of males contra females almost equally balanced with a only a few more males than females. But maby this only my experience?
Anguis fragilis, males | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, juvenile female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, females | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, juvenile females basking | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, juvenile female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Anguis fragilis, males | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Mauled or dead specimens: Normally I can find many of dead Anguis fragils during a fieldtrip, on average I find about three dead individuals per trip. Even though, it’s not common for me to find alive specimens that are mauled or miss their tails. Today I found a live specimen that had no tail and was mauled, possibly by a bird. It had sores and bruises all over and I don’t think it would survive long. The dead Anguis fragilis I find always miss their tails, it is almost always a common denominator, I don’t know why. I could emagine they were killed by birds and unsuccessfully separated themselved from their tails in an attempt to stay alive.
Lacerta agilis, sand lizards:
The beautiful sand lizards seemed to do fine, there was movement in the grass no matter where we trod. The only thing that surprised me, was that we only had seen two females during the entire field trip? We saw dozens of males, I think I found approximately 30 lizards in total during the excursion. We saw some single juvenile specimens but we did not mannaged to take any pictures of them.
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis; male, female (and flie) | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male & female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male - "close up" | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Lacerta agilis, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
The following motive is rather unusual I believe. As you can se a grass snake, Natrix natrix, is basking next to a sand lizard, Lacerta agilis. It is unusual to see hunter and prey side by side while basking. Unluckily for me the grass snake disappered before i mannaged to get som decent shots, it irritated me a bit, since it was a great motive. I was forced to crop the image so the subject of the photo was not too small.
Lacerta agilis male & Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix, grass snakes:
The grass snakes where beautiful as always. During this trip we only found about 4 grass snakes (+ a dead specimen), which was a depressingly smaller number than what we had anticipated, but it just proves that you can never be sure of anything when dealing with animals and photography. The ones we found where young adult specimens, all of them were in good shape after the harsh winter.
Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix, dead specimen | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natrix natrix, dead specimen, close up | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Vipera berus, European common adders:
It was very difficult to get some good Vipera berus pictures during this trip. The vegetation was very dense and the animals were too heated and allert when we arrived at the locations. I believe we found 6 European common adders during the two days. I must admit I was dertermined to get some viper shots, so it was pretty annoying not being able to find any animals to photograph. Even though I mannaged to get a single decent shots.
Vipera berus, female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Vipera berus, male | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Vipera berus, female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Vipera berus, female | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Amphibia; frogs, toads, salamanders and newts:
In a forest glade we found a lot of Rana temporaria. It was literally crawling with them on the forest floor and they were really easy to find. It's great to see that there are so many local forest lakes are teeming with European common frogs. It was very easy to get some nice good pictures of them as the forest itself is the perfect setup. By chance we also found a juvenile Bufo bufo. Later, we also chose to visit a newt area, but since I have way to many images from that location, we chose to look for specimens on land, we only found a single Triturus cristatus.
Bufo bufo, juvenile | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Bufo bufo, juvenile | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, young specimen | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, young specimen | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, small juvenile | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, adult | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, adult | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Rana temporaria, adult | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Other wildlife; birds, mammals and insects:
Fulica atra | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Flie | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Today, 24/05-2010 i found a common horse leech. It have been many years since i last found a leech, so it reminded me of my childhood experiences in the field.
If you want you can watch a movie of the common horse leech here, (The movie is from venstrehus.dk): http://www.vestrehus.dk/cpix/1/iglefilm.wmv
If you want you can watch a movie of the common horse leech here, (The movie is from venstrehus.dk): http://www.vestrehus.dk/cpix/1/iglefilm.wmv
Haemopis sanguisuga | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Haemopis sanguisuga | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
The nature
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Natural habitat | © Mikkel Frederiksen 2010
Update:
Melanistic Vipera berus at Korshage
In my part of Odsherred melanistic specimens are very rare.
The date of 24/05-2010, me and Christian Nielsen found the first melanistic Vipera berus in Korshage we have ever seen in that area.
Normally I have to travel far to find melanistic specimens. I always knew there we black adders in Rørvig, but we never found any.
This is the first black adder i have ever encountered in m own "backyard". So it was a pleasant find.
Unlucky for us it vanished into the bush and I never got a decent photo.
The date of 24/05-2010, me and Christian Nielsen found the first melanistic Vipera berus in Korshage we have ever seen in that area.
Normally I have to travel far to find melanistic specimens. I always knew there we black adders in Rørvig, but we never found any.
This is the first black adder i have ever encountered in m own "backyard". So it was a pleasant find.
Unlucky for us it vanished into the bush and I never got a decent photo.
Next part...
Click here to read the next and unfortunate part of this fieldtrip - the bite report.
Responces:
Venomdoc forum: http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4570
Fieldherping.EU: http://fieldherping.eu/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=431&sid=087af3e4d0a89e709f0565267f90d9e0
Fieldherp forum: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31715
NHF: http://www.nhf.dk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=38285&sid=d2d52bb16b4dae8ad787a5a14508f99a
Slange forum: http://www.designer-reptiles.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5005
Venomdoc forum: http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4570
Fieldherping.EU: http://fieldherping.eu/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=431&sid=087af3e4d0a89e709f0565267f90d9e0
Fieldherp forum: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31715
NHF: http://www.nhf.dk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=38285&sid=d2d52bb16b4dae8ad787a5a14508f99a
Slange forum: http://www.designer-reptiles.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5005