The Nature Photography Thread

[GarterGuy]

Awww...that's reallly a shame. Good looking snake. Did you keep it? I know I'd actually like to get a DOR timber rattle snake to have it mounted. Got to get my venomous license first though, but if I do find one, I'd like to be able to preserve it if I can.
Roy

[Stefan-A]

It was killed since it was repeatedly observed less than a meter away from a path the kids run along like 50 times a day and we were unable to catch it alive. A great personal failure on my part. My relatives are very scared of snakes, especially adders and especially since you can't really expect 4-year-olds to watch out for snakes.

A real shame indeed, beatiful dark bluish grey coloring, even my sister's son thought it was beautiful. We gave it a proper burial. Never really got the idea of having animals mounted, it's not like it's a hunting trophy and even then it's largely symbolic, you don't generally keep the entire animal, just the tusks, the skull, the antlers or horns.

I'd love to have a V. berus just like that one, but wildcaught are a pain in the arse to keep and captive bred ones are rare. And I still don't know what kind of permits are required for keeping native species. I just wonder how big the difference is between captive bred and captive born ones.

[adamanteus]

I've never had captive bred or captive born Vipera berus, only wild caught, and in my experience they are very difficult to feed.

[Stefan-A]

I know, I think we've had the berus discussion before.

[Stefan-A]

Zootoca vivipara

As stated in the other thread, the results of yesterday's university-sponsored bird watching trip.

[adamanteus]

Deja vu! Nice photo Stefan!

[Stefan-A]

"Nice photo" is the deja vu here, James.

[Thamnophis]

Stefan, that is a very pretty Zootoca! Those white spots are priceless...

[Stefan-A]

Thanks. I wish I'd gone down to its level, but I had something like 20 people behind me hurrying to get to the next bird watching tower.

[Thamnophis]

Mmmmm, those ***** birdwatchers...