Baltic Adders

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Jimmy_77
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Joined: June 9th, 2010, 12:24 am
Location: Sweden

Baltic Adders

Post by Jimmy_77 »

Video of Vipera berus I observed last summer during a stay on the Island of Møn, Denmark.

http://youtu.be/AAVfC4EBJgI
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chrish
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Re: Baltic Adders

Post by chrish »

Jimmy,

You can actually embed your video here so you don't have to go to youtube to see it.



Cool video. It really gives a sense of the habitat and conditions for finding Vipera in that coastal area. Pretty neat. its amazing how difficult the smaller one was to see. Looks like you almost stepped on it!

I like how the video ends abruptly when that little male lunges towards your boot. Sort of looks like the caption should read "this was the last video he made before the vicious snake attack that took his life". :lol:
Jimi
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Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

Re: Baltic Adders

Post by Jimi »

Cool-looking area, reminds me of the locations in the Wallander TV show (Skane, Sweden).

Where do those animals overwinter? I'm under the impression the Baltic coast is damp and chilly but not bone-crushingly cold. (The vegetation looks a lot like coastal NW USA.) Do they just overwinter in relatively shallow rodent burrows? Looks like it's all sand there, as the basic substrate: no bedrock, no deep rock crevices to hunker down it.

Do the newborns mainly eat crickets, or what? The adults surely are heavily into voles and mice, but the babies start life at ~7-8cm, no? Pretty tiny.

Thanks for the answers, and for the video that prompted the questions.

cheers,
Jimi
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Jimmy_77
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Location: Sweden

Re: Baltic Adders

Post by Jimmy_77 »

I tried to embed, but didnt get it to work so I just posted the like. I´ll see if I can fix it later.

Regarding the habitat it is more or less the exact same as southern Swedish coast to the Baltic sea (Wallander-habitat :) ).
On this location it is a pebble/sand mixed shore, and there is also manmade banks (to protect against storms and high water levels) made of large boulders and soil.

This creates excellent hibernation and basking sites. I also found a juvenile Grass snake (Natrix natrix) on the same location.

The juveniles are tiny, but they are probably more like 10-12 cm when newborn. The newborns might eat some insects but main diet is more likely frogmetamorphs and viviparous lizards.
Adults main diet is voles, but I guess the odd mouse also will be consumed. As well as Viviparous lizards and Frogs.
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Jimmy_77
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Location: Sweden

Re: Baltic Adders

Post by Jimmy_77 »

Tried to embed the clip, but its not possible to follow the instructions on the forum-

The link from youtube doesnt have an "&", so maybe the instructions in the forum threads needs an update??

http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/vie ... =2&t=13987
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Jimmy_77
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Re: Baltic Adders

Post by Jimmy_77 »

A couple more shots from Møn:

Shoreline habitat for Adders, Grass snakes and such:
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Natrix
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Dusk
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East coast "Møns Klint"
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Falco peregrinus
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Liselund castle
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Pike in the pond
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Jimmy_77
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Location: Sweden

Re: Baltic Adders

Post by Jimmy_77 »

Not Baltic Adders, but "close" neighbour from the Swedish west coast.
First find for me this season.

Image

Image
mikez
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Re: Baltic Adders

Post by mikez »

Very cool. Love the beach habitat. Looks just like many places on the coast of New England USA. I've seen many eastern milksnakes, smooth greens and garters in places just like that in Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
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