To have vacation in spring is awesome, especially if there’s warm and sunny weather. I spent a few days by my parents place and checked out all the cool places which I call my “territory”. There are a lot of ponds, the shores of the lake, forests and woods. While I travelled through the landscape I explored a lot of animals, flowers and… Bones! Get a photo blast under the cut!
I started my stroll by the big pond complex which lies next to a wonderful mixed forest. The ponds are rather new, so there’s not so much vegetation yet. Perfect for watching some animals!
Cetonia aurata, a very beautiful beetle with a dazzling look. There were a lot of them by some flowers.
Next to these beetles was a painted lady (man, the English name of this butterfly is funny xD). It was hungry and sucked on some bugle (ajuga) flowers. A beautiful little flower.
Of course there were a lot of frogs, too. Mostly of them were water frogs.
But even frogs don’t live forever. I left this leg left behind, because I didn’t have a suitable container with me.
Snails with shells were everywhere! I had to watch my steps.
Copulating snails. This act can take a few hours, but I wasn’t that patient.
On my path I met a good friend of every bone collector. Say „hi“ to Mr. red-breasted carrion beetle (Oiceoptoma thoracicum).
If you open your eyes you can discover a lot of arums in these woods.
And how lovely the kidney-vetch blooms! I have such a flower on my balcony as well, a real eye-catcher.
My journey brought me onward to the lake. The shores there are a nature protection area, but at some places swimming is allowed. I really like this place, it’s a piece of heaven. The water quality is very good and if you have luck you can watch brook lampreys! They have their mating season in April and Mai. I will write a separate entry about these funny animals later.
A lot of water fowl call these shores their home, too. I spotted a bald coot on its nest, dawwww <3
I found this egg shell on the shore, it’s from a bald coot egg! I didn’t saw any bald coot chicks so far, so I think a crow or a gull stole it out of a nest.
And of course there were ducks! A pair of red-crested pochards.
You had to stay on the path, because some areas were swampy. The marsh marigold would give that area a thumbs up (if it had a thumb).
Next to the lake is a forest where slow-worms can be found. But this one was actually very fast to run away.
Funny shrooms grow here.
The next day I was with a good friend of mine in the mountain forest. With its rocks and cliffs it’s a very ethnic forest and you can explore a lot of things there. Among others footprints of badgers!
These woods were hunting areas, so you can find a lot of fox bones if you know where to look. I found three lower jaws of red foxes. One was a set and I think it will fit to the fox skull we found last autumn on the same place! I gave it to my friend, because she owns that fox skull now. The other lower jaw was covered with dirt, only the canine where sticking out of the dirt. I was lucky to find it!
I never saw a wild owl so far but I’m lucky to find pellets. This one wasn’t fresh anymore and fell apart. I think it was one of the tawny owl. I will write more about owl pellets later.
But the real highlight of the day were the morels! Yummi!
Even if there were a few rainy hours/days during my vacation, it still was a blast! Now I just need to take some nice ring snakes pictures. I hope I will see them soon!
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