Well... resurrecting what's left -- the second attempt of that post :-)

Where did I start.. ah yes, with animals, plants and that stuff! One of the main attractions of the trip has been the wild tulips! I'm still sorry for the botanics group, that there was always some pressure on them regarding time. Cause there's always too little time and too much interesting plants... here.. and over there... and on the top of that hill, and while standing on top, well you can imagine, also behind that hill, and there - a flower again! And so on.

It's only fair to say, if you replace "plant" with "lizard" and "flower" with "snake", it's the same for fieldherpetology. And if you replace snake with bird and lizard with bird you get the idea of a birding-trip. ..and there are stories, just tales, that people got totally lost, cause they were so much engrossed into the plants.. and bugs.. and lizards... ;-)

 

So, with the warmer weather, the flowers started blooming again, and looots of tulips amongst them! The upper ones were clicked in Kazakhstan, the lower in Kyrgyzstan.

 

 

Of course, not only plantey-stuff was coming out to get some sun, also my beloved critters (well, likely another case of very one-sided-affection..)!

The animal's adaption to the continental climate is just amazing. Below minus five degrees in the morning -- what do you hear? Frogs (Rana ridibundus)! Ok, they did a little cheating, cause they were sitting in a pond "powered by" a thermal spring. So that's cool, but you can also observe this in Austria close to Villach.

So, apart from that cheating frogs, again, below minus 5 during night, close to 6°C plus at around 10 o'clock morning, and the first Phrynocephalus agamas are sitting outside! You could pick them up with two fingers, cause there were, well, a little cold, but still, they were basking outside! And not only one, but several. Of those (P. helioscopus) for now no pictures, but here also something very common, the steppe agama (Trapelus sanguinolentus/agilis) and the single Eremias grammica (Reticulate Racerunner; cool name for that guy i would say) observed. Other specimen of Eremias species were more common.

Aaand, always veeery cool, a camel spider!

 

 

Some short words, or better a small pic, concerning crucial equipment: Selfmade lightweight snakehook (a.k.a. coat hanger; never used but aaalways at hand, even in the night.. and while munching through snow... and on the toilet...), camera (obviously in use every now and then), vodka (that one was two for the price of one; also in use every now and then...), and the holy Svensson. That picture also represents the standard sitting position and gives a little clue about the space available in the "zoology-bus".

 

..and with some nice random pictures I would like to close the Kazakhstan posting :-)

 

 

The one and only bus, the two core-members of the birding group (a bit disoriented due to the lack of bird), left below a graveyard with influences of different cultures (mainly islamic and russian-orthodox if i remember right), and the leading lady/professor of the botanics group, likely soon to be recaptured by leading guy of zoology due to average distance > 7 hills to the rest of the group members ;-)

 

...and at last, those two signs, mounted as they were in an, at the moment, empty hostel for children, i don't know why, they really gave me weird feelings in the stomach.

 

 

...driver remember, they are waiting for you at home!

- Саламатсызбы!

- Саламатчылык!

- Кандайсыз?

- Жакшы!

 

... so much for my Kyrgyz (Hello! Re: Hello! How are you? Fine!). Kyrgyz and Kazakh are i think insofar interesting languages, as they are Turk languages, but written in cyrillic letters. Well, at least, for Kyrgyz (likely similar for Kazakh), since the influence of the USSR; before that (and maybe in future?) it has been written in the latin based "uniform turkic alphabet"... and before that in Arabic letters .. and before that in Turkish runes..

 

enough of the blabla, now here the last part, some pictures from kyrgyzstan! (I like the english "Kyrgyzstan" more than "Kirgistan", that "Kyrgyz" looks far more stylish :-) )

 

Starting with Bishkek, the capital city, the pictures have been taken all only several hundred meters apart.

 

 

..still in the same area.. below: habitat of Vipera renardi and the official town's landmark, I would say. An absolutely huge factory, which overshoots everthing and sets the whole city below a smog dome.

 

 

... I did not forget about one other great trip last year! I had the chance to join my croatian friend Boris (a huge thanks btw ;-) ) on his field work for the project on mapping the croatian herpetofauna. For one week we were looking quite intensly (well, he a bit more, i had a little more nap-breaks in between, once i fell asleep during the process of getting out of the car..), at least 8 hrs per day, in the field for reptiles and amphibians. As it proofed once again, going with him in the field usually includes some nice surprises regarding the herpetofauna. Last year.. damn, two years ago! ... it was dozends of snakes on Olib, and now again, a more or less new specimen-record for me. This time it was the nose-horned viper, of which we found approx. 50 indivuduals in one week! (..could anyone maybe tell me, if i used the right tenses in the last few sentences?)

 

Lika (the region of croatia we have visited) is really amazing, and very much in contrast to what one usually has in mind about croatia. It's a hilly to mountainous area with some flatlands in between, and, unlike the seaside, completely green.

So if you like to do some easy hiking and relaxing far away from any touristic stuff, Lika seems like a great place for that. Uh, and it's also worth looking for mushrooms there.

Unfortunately I didn't take much landscape shots, so I can more or less only present some in-situ pics of vipers and other critters... like usual...

 

 

Did I already mention that all pics were shot in-situ? Even the trees and flowers!

 

 

 

 Aaaand, at last, the obligatory music tip, this time more random: Nils Frahm, ...uh, wrong link, that was Warpaint..., but here's Nils now, then Orenda Fink, Veruca Salt (damn, that reminds me, that school has been a loongtime ago) and the last one cause I recently started watching Buffy (which is completely new to me): Far ..actually a really cool song, if you like the Tool-Deftoneish-Type of Music.

 

Bokić i laku noć!