Spring in Sweden..

Accounts and photos of non-captive reptiles in their natural habitat outside of South Africa. Try to record with your account details such as time of day/night, temperature, weather conditions, lunar cycle, sex, rough age of reptile, and so on.

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Spring in Sweden..

Postby Contortrix » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:00 pm

I have posted on a few other forums but i'll post here too...

Finaly spring has come to Sweden. I was out today and had a look arround my usual berus spots and found this female basking in the sun.

Can you spot her?
Image

Well... Here's some closer images.

Image
Image

Cheers, Ronny
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Postby Bushviper » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:09 pm

It must be great to be able to go to a "spot" and find snakes year after year. Here we never seem to find any snakes in the same spot with any degree of regularity.

Nice female. Lets hope the males track her down this year. She looks breedable.
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Postby Contortrix » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:16 pm

Yeah, she was a decent sized girl. I recognise allot of snakes at my spots from years before. It is really fun seeing snakes you know has been there for 2-3 years.
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Postby armata » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:02 pm

Surely that Vb is a male? They are always the first to emerge, usually 10days or so before females. The colour is wrong for female and the zigzag to wide and bold for a female.

In April Rubida and i will see a few of my old friends, some of the Vb's are over twenty five years old, always use the same hibernacula and summer grounds.

BV am finding individual puffies, armata. and nivea in same spot now 3 years + now

Same goes for black mamba in KZN years ago, I'm sure there are others here who have noticed that
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Postby Contortrix » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:28 pm

Okay, i might be wrong on the gender...... Hard to tell from the pictures now it was very brown in the clolours and looked like a female to me but i could be wrong.

Cheers, Ronny
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Postby armata » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:06 pm

Some male Vb's look drab and olive when they emerge, the moult is more or less synchronous and is the trigger for the mating season.
This is usually first week in April (UK) rubida is so looking forward the mating (adders that is) plus he will have a couple of new UAE firsts under his belt, thanks to Damien (who thinks he'e going to drag this old fart up a mountain looking for Pseudocerastes, well maybe.)
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Postby armata » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:19 pm

Here is a pre-moult male Vipera berus, quite brown looking, also unusually this male has recently fed. Photographed in situ, Dorset UK

Image
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Postby Contortrix » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:53 pm

Very nice picture. I need to save some money and buy myself a decent camera:P
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Postby damiensharjah » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:01 am

Thanks for the pictures Contortrix - amazing just to watch things- and yes, old fart :D , if time permits, it would be good. Unfortunately the best part of the mountain is in Oman and you can't get a visa at the border post there I learned. We'll guage if it's worth the journey or better to concentrate on the desert. Either way it should be good. The weather is very warm during the day now and the Varanus are out and about again. I almost brained Abdulaziz by braking hard on a dune for a tiny hatchling monitor busy hunting a lacertid. First time I've ever seen that!!
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Postby armata » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:31 am

What about Uromastyx Damien?
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Postby damiensharjah » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:40 am

Yip. They are out and about (What's left of them anyway!!! :( )

We'll get in-situ shots with patience and a telephoto lense, otherwise they will be easy enough to noose.

All the little Ground geckos Stenodactylus are active at night now. Even with the chill not having left, and the dunes are positively littered with sandfish Scincus mitranus when the first sun comes out for about an hour and then underground again.
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