Spring Time 2015

Ring snake.

Sigh, I'm sorry. I promised you an entry about a skull but now you get a big fat photo post instead. Can't help myself, but I was outdoors and saw a lot of amazing animals again. And I can't wait, I must share them with you now! Bear with me. But I think the photos will blast your anger away. Not sure about that, hm? So, then read more under the cut! :)

It was unusual warm the last days, so I went to the ponds. First I visited the snake pond. As you can see on the image above I was lucky and saw my first ring snake of this year! YAY! It was a small one, maybe 30cm. I fell in love immediately <3

I also rescued a female newt. She was very dry, so I picked her up and carried her to the water. She was exhausted - poor girl.

In the water was a lot of life. Look at these pile of pollywogs! Dawwww.

My mom spotted a very beautiful butterfly. It's a mourning cloak (Nymphalis antipa).

The photo is a bit too bright, but a big cowslip was near the pond. It was stunning like every year.

Oh, and of course: common wall lizards!

Some unknown yellow flowers spread near the little creek. Beautiful.

Also some white flowers. Too bad I don't know the name of it and I'm a bit lazy to look in a book ^^"

Eep! What's that? Seems to be a carnivorous fly. A predator fly ;)

The snake pond isn't big and after a while I went to the bigger pond complex near the lake. There were a lot of love-crazed toads. I think toads look pretty and aren't ugly at all.

Suddenly a great diving beetle appeared! It was a bit too far away for my camera, but hey! A big diving beetle! WOW!

There were toads and also some frogs. This one looked very bloated. Maybe it was full of eggs? It wasn't shy either, strange thing.

Oh, I forgot to mention that there were deer bones in a bush. Sadly no skull. I left them there.

The next day I took a ride to the lake itself. I was a bit discontented, but that mood should chance very soon...
Well, there were mallard ducks, as usual. Male and female.

A juvenile gull was bathing in the sun, too. But I startled it a bit with my camera ^^"

And here we have a red-crested pochard. These guys are a bit too shy for my taste.

I went ahead and stopped by the reed. A bow wave caught my eyes and I thought there must be a diving bird. I saw a shadow under the water but it was too big for a duck or some other bird, nor did it come up to breathe. I went closer and saw a fat fish under the surface! But no, there wasn't only one fish, there were two! And one of them was a pike!!! OMG! What a sensation! Too bad I wasn't able to take some photos.

I was so excited that I almost stepped on a birds egg. A birds egg? Strange. It was in the middle of the meadow with no nest material around it. Maybe a crow or a gull plundered a birds nest and forgot the egg there? The egg had the size of a chicken egg. Any ideas?

I walked along and found the remains of a black-headed gull. A fox must caught it, because the feathers were bitten off.

In April there are chances to see brook lampreys. There's a single spot where you can watch them mating, but today there was only a single one there. Was I too late?

So, if you came so far you truly deserve a cookie! Thanks for stopping by and see you later then!