By Plato Stefanopoulos
Introduction
(Synopsis: after an extended period of freezing temps and
snow, the weather finally warmed up in late March, and we herped nonstop,
finding several snakes, and the abrupt change of the weather perhaps had to do with
our success. Skip to “Day 1” if you don’t want to listen to me drivel on about
loosely related things.)
I’m writing this introductory text in part to kill my
engagement, but also to give some context as to why everything (at least
potentially) happened as it did. Following the miserable snow fronts of March
and my absolute catastrophe of a trip to the Peloponnese, it would be an
understatement to say that the aforementioned events absolutely killed my
spirit. I stayed inside for a while, just… existing, in an ashen and frankly demoralizing
monotony. Due to the abysmal state of the world, along with my less-than-ideal
personal life, as many-a people will say online, I was “in a bad place”. But
that was until (at long last) the weather was finally forecasted to cooperate, with
highs in the 70s and warm overnights, and not only that, but this temperature
rise was also going to start on the Greek Independence Day 3-day weekend.
Stamatis sadly could not make it to Athens, however I did get the chance to hit
the field with Alex and Charis. Given the extreme cold that preceded the abrupt
warming, we were not quite sure what to expect when we went out in the field.
All the same, we did have two hypotheses in mind: 1) the herps would be
hesitant to come out and would take some time adjusting after all this cold or
2) due to it being so late in the season, paired with their inability to emerge
previously, they would all emerge simultaneously and there would just be herps
everywhere. We decided to visit familiar spots that we knew were productive, as
well as new sites around those, with a very simple goal in mind: get our hands
on as many snakes, glass lizards and trilineata as possible. Before
going out with the others, I visited a known introduced Algyroides
nigropunctatus population in Athens and they were out in ridiculous
numbers, so that rose my hopes even more. Without stalling any further, here
are the stories and photos from our herping adventures!
Day 1
It was a bright, sunny, and honestly hot early morning and I
was in a short sleeve and shorts when I got in my car to pick up Charis and
Alex. It didn’t take long to arrive at our destination in Southern Attica, and
after playing with some juniper skinks, we went to a played out flip site that
somehow has still not produced a snake. Things looked grim at first with only a
couple skinks and green toads, but right as we got into the good cover, I
managed to flip not one, but two juvenile Pseudopus, much to everyone’s
delight.
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| Sea of Sinapis; this means one thing and one thing only - it's officially spring!!! |
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| A humble juniper skink (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| Typical Attica flipping (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| The first Pseudopus juvenile (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| View of the whole animal |
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| The second juvenile (C) Charis Kouelis |
After we photographed the little glass lizards, we walked a bit until we reached an excellent spot for… more glass lizards. And that’s exactly what we found. After photographing a marginata and flipping some rocks (to no avail), we split up. 5 minutes into habitat hiking, I scared an absolutely massive dark Pseudopus that ended up escaping due to my rusty reflexes. Seconds after that, I scared another adult, but I was quicker that time and managed a grab. I immediately called the others to come join me so that we could photograph and release the lizard. While they were on their way, I started closely examining the animal, and soon came to find out that it was just about the most unfortunate individual we could have come across. Its eyes were in sad shape, one was sealed shut while the other had crud developing on the eyelid. As if that were not enough, it had an absolutely ridiculous indentation near the end of the body, likely caused by an old predation attempt, but it could also be a genetic defect. Either way, the animal seemed to be in good fitness, and after getting some half-decent photos in between laughing hysterically, we let it go on its way.
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| Attica herping would simply not be right without several of these! (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| mangled adult male glass lizard |
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| The giant indentation near its vent (C) Charis Kouelis |
We continued hiking, and immediately Charis spotted a
Montpellier snake basking next to a bush. It immediately shot off and it was
gone before I could even blink. As I thought we had lost the snake for sure,
Alex came in the clutch. He had previously assumed position below the bush (we
were at a slope) and managed to catch the snake just as it was going to head
down, with one of the most spectacular grabs I have ever seen. The snake was extremely
warm and defensive, and I got bitten. However, after a couple minutes, it
calmed down enough to allow for some great photos.
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| Portrait (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| View of the whole animal |
After releasing the snake where we found it, we obviously kept hiking. After missing a couple glass lizards and observing some Balkan green lizards, Alex spotted a more modestly sized glass lizard high up a shrub. For some reason it took me an embarrassingly long time to see it. Finally, we positioned ourselves and I did the honors and caught the animal. Ιt was one of the most beautiful individuals I have ever seen, it had the perfect size and not a blemish on it, and it cooperated enough for some great photos to be taken. It was a pleasure to get to photograph this animal after the previous individual that was not in great shape. After we released it, we continued hiking the rest of the habitat, to no avail.
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| The perfect Pseudopus. this one was a subadult. (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| Same |
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| View of the whole animal |
We had been hiking for hours and I was ready to finally eat
some lunch. Much to my dismay, I had forgotten to bring a fork with me (a
reoccurring theme in this trip report), and we had to make a considerable
detour to get to the nearest café/bar so that I could get some single use
utensils. We didn’t find any new spots on our way, but we did photograph a
buzzard and a marsh harrier only a few meters away from us, and Charis found a
new species of Odonata. Thankfully, I was given a set of single use wooden
utensils when I asked for a fork when we arrived, which was a relief. We sat in
the car and watched NKFherping’s new video on YouTube until we finished lunch, something
that seemed very amusing to me at the time. In any case, we herped a bit after
lunch as well. Since we were so tired from our earlier endeavors and had already
found so much, the day was pretty much a wash, and after observing some
amphibians, we decided to call it a quits as the sun was setting.
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| in situ kurt (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| Bufotes viridis tadpoles. At least a couple males were calling from the pond, though we could not spot them. (C) Charis Kouelis |
While we did get a lot done on that outing, I also realized
just to how great of an extent I was out of form when we first got there, since
it had been such a long time since I had done this. That being said, my
reflexes and spotting skills were coming back to me by the hour, and I was
curious and excited about what would come next.
Day 2Following the absolute success that the previous day was,
even though we were all exhausted, the three of us decided to go out again the
following day anyway.
Due to some complications (entirely my fault), we ended up
arriving over 1 1/2 hours later than we had originally intended, which, in
hindsight, ended up being a good thing because while the weather was sunny, the
temps did not surpass the low 60s. Upon arriving, Alex photographed some fish
after which we were off to my most legendary flip site in Attica, with Balkan
green lizards and Dahl’s in mind. After flipping an ocellated skink, we scared
a trilineata into a pile of discarded car parts next to a fence. We
decided Charis should head to the opposite side of the old fence in case the
lizard escaped in that direction once we uncovered it. Before he could get into
position, he yelled out “snake!” many times. In that instant, I saw a large
Montpellier snake on a dirt road a few meters away, making a mad dash for
cover. Its speed was unmatched, and it wasn’t just slithering away, rather, it
was making jumps! I instantly ran in front of it, dove down on my stomach and
managed to intercept it! The snake was thrashing violently, hissing extremely
loudly and continuously biting the fabric of my pants! By some stroke of luck
(or skill??), I did not get bitten at all during the struggle and managed to
successfully contain it for a short moment. Adrenaline was rushing in my system
as we returned to the garbage pile for the trilineata, and with the help
of the guys, I eventually seized it as well. We continued flipping, missed a
beautiful adult trilineata (twice) and Alex managed to catch a second trilineata
with our help in similar fashion to the previous one. After we collected
ourselves and the animals calmed down, a photo session ensued, after which we
let all 3 reptiles go back where we found them.
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| Malpolon insignitus large light-colored female. what a snake!! |
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| healthy adult Eastern Montpellier snakes are very robust, considerably more so than the colubrids in Greece. One more thing among a myriad others that make them as cool as they are. |
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| one of two trilineata we got in hand. Both were deep in shed, but still very beautiful (C) Charis Kouelis |
During the photo session, we also took pictures of some
Balkan terrapins in the nearby intermittent section of the adjacent stream.
After the photography session, we also found another large snake basking in
some dense vegetation next to a huge olive tree, though we sadly could not
catch or photograph it.
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| in situ basking Balkan terrapin - one of several (C) Alex Dounis |
After a fruitless hike to another site with only some trillineata
seen, we finally got back to the car and had lunch. I forgot to bring my fork for the second time, but thankfully I still had the unused wooden knife from the single use set I got the day before... anyway, after lunch, we decided to try out a couple more
spots. Sadly, these didn’t pan out either, with some green toads, juniper
skinks, an ocellated skink and some missed trilineata being the only
fruits of our labor. Following that, I dropped the others off and we all went
home. Just what an insane day!! Arguably some of the most fun I’ve ever had in
the field in recent history! We hastily planned another outing for the next
day, where we would actually head north for a change. Alex had places to be,
but Charis would be able to join me.
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| Bufotes viridis photography. (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| (C) Charis Kouelis |
Day 3
I woke up, packed my stuff, and went and picked up Charis.
This time, we would be hitting an excellent spot that I had yet to visit this
time of year, that is widely known to be great, so there was obviously a lot of
excitement on my part.
Since we had to complete a pretty long drive to get there, I figured we should check some roadside spots on the way, and it paid off, as we found a few herps, including a Xerotyphlops double flip, a lifer for Charis.
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| Xerotyphlops double flip! |
Without wasting much time, we left and soon arrived at our
destination. It was sunny and warming up nicely, and we started flipping some
cover and hiking around. We stupidly missed a large male Malpolon, but I
managed to spot and catch a young female that was basking next to some bramble,
and was able to pull it out with Charis’ help.
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| Young female Eastern Montpellier snake. one of the most cooperative individuals of the species i've ever had the pleasure of photographing |
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| Eastern Montpellier snake |
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| Eastern Montpellier snake (C) Charis Kouelis |
After we had hiked that area, we were unsure as to where to
go and what to target and being completely exhausted from the two previous days
did not help either. The first spot was inaccessible, though we did find an
Ablepharus zooming across the road and helped it pass the curb, which was quite
comical. I digress. As we got into the afternoon hours, we checked out a few
spots, but only found a few amphibians. Finally, we visited a half decent
watery spot (since Charis really wanted some Natrix), I had “lunch” (thankfully, I had brought a fork this time...) and
changed into my flip flops. Ah, it almost felt like summer again… anyhow, after
walking several kilometers (and stupidly missing some sliders), we were in some
good habitat.
As I was demoing what would happen if we saw a grass snake
in the water, in an attempt to make a joke to highlight the routine nature of
the act, I actually saw an adult female coiled up, basking on the concrete. I
picked it up and nonchalantly said that I had found it, and once Charis
realized that I was not joking, he was ecstatic. I hadn’t seen a grass snake in
forever as well and since I am such an avid Natrix enjoyer, I was also
excited about this find. While I was taking some in hand photos of the snake,
Charis went forward and found another adult female, which was very different
looking, and was also an awesome find. We released the snakes after a couple
pics and kept searching. As we were approaching some tin, I saw a glass lizard
basking next to one of the pieces and dove down for it, successfully catching
it before it could even react. I reacted so fast that I didn’t even notice its
size, and it was a massive individual, one of the largest I have ever seen!
Sadly, it did not cooperate for photos, but that’s fine by me. The day was
pretty much a wash after that and after bad communication, we ended up leaving
way earlier than we could (and should) have and did not get a chance to do a
bit of night cruising for amphibians, but I was more than satisfied from just
the first day, let alone the other two.
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| Ophrys lutea. Pretty cool orchids! |
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| Portrait of the larger of two female grass snakes. (C) by Charis Kouelis |
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| The same snake doing her best Viper impression. note the characteristic "bad eye". i have observed this phenomenon on other Natrix in the area as well. |
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| view of the whole animal |
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| the second grass snake that Charis found. An extremely clean and beautiful individual. (C) Charis Kouelis) |
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| Ophrys bombiflora, our lifer! (C) Charis Kouelis |
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| Nice big male glass lizard |
Closing remarks
While some people may dismiss these finds as “lame”, “common stuff” or insignificant, I don’t think it matters. If one looks for reptiles in the field for fun, outside of formal herpetological assessments, as long as it is done within reason and with consideration of disturbing the animals as little as possible, it is most important that fun is had. At the end of the day, what makes something enjoyable cannot be defined and people cannot and should not be told what to enjoy and what not to. We had an absolute blast in the field and nothing can take away from that. That, and, this was but the start of an unbelievable spring with lots of trips and rocket runs, and some honestly life changing moments in the field, a lot of which will be featured in trip reports to come.
Species seen:
Marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata)
Balkan terrapin (Mauremys rivulata)
Common slider (Trachemys scripta)
Eastern Montpellier snake (Malpolon insignitus)
European blind snake (Xerotyphlops vermicularis)
Eastern grass snake (Natrix natrix)
European glass lizard (Pseudopus apodus)
Balkan green lizard (Lacerta trilineata)
Ocellated skink (Chalcides ocellatus)
Juniper skink (Ablepharus kitaibelii)
Balkan marsh frog (Pelophylax kurtmuelleri)
European green toad (Bufotes viridis)
European tree frog (Hyla arborea)
