WonderingChamaleon

I thought of this species when I first glanced at it 😊 congrats! Very nice painting!!

It's beatiful, it looks like a tree cut

A big a chumky lizard with an upright head in the middle of a rocky terrain. Its head is mainly dark with some orange spots, the legs are also dark. The body is thick and a mixture of bright green, yellow and orange. The tail is mainly orange with dark circles.

A landscape of flat open rocky desert with some distant bushes and low trees in the distance and a bright blue sky overhead.

🦎 The amazing Moroccan spiny-tailed lizard, Uromastyx nigriventris.

Colours are very variable, this was one of the cuttest I came across. They eat mainly vegetables, but also some invertebrates when they have the opportunity. I include a photo of the habitat, I wonder how can they thrive ?

A small toad with brownish ruff base colour that is nearly the same as the rocks where it is crouched. It has some irregular green spots on the face, legs and back that look loke lichens. The eyes are also green, with an horizontal oblong pupil.

🐸

Brongersma's toad
Barbarophryne brongersmai
Morocco

You have some beautiful eyes, you know?
I love the green spots that look like lichens or algae.

Pygopodidae - Wikipedia https://share.google/sluzTuYOoWZiNt6vk

Closeup of Wrigby! (Not a snake!) : r/geckos https://share.google/dTQWmdV0FPpdKXHJj

Closeup of Wrigby! (Not a snake!) : r/geckos https://share.google/dTQWmdV0FPpdKXHJj

Why didn't anyone tell me there was legless gecko DLC available on Earth ver 5.0 (I know we're technically on version 6.0 cause of our current extinction event but we can skip formalities cause holy shit there's sneckos!!) #reptile #🦎 #leglessgeckos #lizards #snecko

Frogs have regional accents, apparently.

Who knew? 😜

#herps

When I saw it, I had no idea what it was, so I took some photos and thought I would look it up later.

In the evening, I forgot about it. When I first saw the pictures at home, I was too focused on the herps, so I skipped it again. So, finally, more than 6 months later, I realised I had a lifer 😂

Little bird perched on a branch. There are many other branches around and some long green leaves in the background. The bird belly is grey, the back is brown, and the wings are dark brown with a rusty brown patch. The head is black with a thick and very contrasting white stripe above the eyes. The bill is black, somewhat thick, and long.

🪶 Black-crowned chagra
Chagra senegalus

A trumpeter finch posed on barren earth, with some grains by its feet. It is a small bird, coloured brown with some pinkish tinges and a thick rosy red bill.

Carnival paper / plastic toy trumpet

🪶Trumpeter finch
Bucanetes githagineus
South of Assa, Morocco

These birds are called like this because their call is exactly the sound of a party trumpet (see photo). They inhabit desert and semi desert, but need water in their flying range. It was a new species for me, I had never seen one before.

The head of a viperine snake protruding from the water surface

The head of a viperine snake protruding from the water surface

In a 200m lake full of tree frog tadpoles (cf last post), there are often others looking for the easy meal... in this case, Viperine snakes, Natrix maura.

I saw more than 12 coming to the surface to breathe.

Viperine 🐍 are called like this because their pattern and behaviour often mimicks vipers

A tiny tree frog about 1 cm long sitting on a leaf of a small plant. It is overall brown with a darker stripe running from the nostril through the eye and over the front leg. The throat is whitish. You can see some other leaves of the same plant and a blurred background.

🐸 Mediterranean tree frog
Hyla meridionalis
Tiny baby, just out of water!
About 1 cm long, maybe less

Photographed in Southern France in August 2024.

A black starling perched on a tree branch. There are few green leaves on the tip of the branch and a pink wall in the background. The starling feathers are black all over, the legs are pink, and the bill is yellow with some grey on the base.

🪶 Spotless starling
Sturnus unicolor

Two Spoonbills flying with trees in the background. They are big and nearly all white wirh just some yellow on the breast and black wingtips. The bill is huge and terminates in the form of a spoon.

A spoonbill walking on a river. It has huge legs, neck and bill. The bill is spoon shaped.

🪶
Spoonbills
Platalea leucorodia

A grey 4x4 pickup truck is parked in a street. There's a building with closed doors and a store behind it. Inside the pickup, there are two dromadaires sitting in the back.

🦊
Souvenir from Assa, Morocco.
Dromadaires in a pick-up truck.

In Morocco, they call them "our 4x4" (and they mean the dromedaires 😂)

Baby salamander black with huge yellow spots fusing together to form stripes. Walking on fallen dry oak leaves.

Baby salamander black with huge yellow spots fusing together to form stripes. Walking on fallen dry oak leaves.

Baby salamander black with huge yellow spots fusing together to form stripes. Walking on green moss.

🦎

Tiny little salamander, just about 6 cm long

Yes, I've read that before, but I've been birding for about 40 years, I see several dozens of them every year, and I've never come across a light phase individual. I think they probably have certain prefered regions, and it's not close to me.

I've never seen a buzzard like this. I guess they get pretty rare in central and south Europe

A fire salamander is all black with huge bright yellow irregular spots on the head, body and legs. It is walking on the forest floor covered with fallen leaves.

A fire salamander is all black with huge bright yellow irregular spots on the head, body and legs. It is walking on the forest floor covered with fallen leaves

A fire salamander is all black with huge bright yellow irregular spots on the head, body and legs. It is walking on the forest floor covered with fallen leaves

A fire salamander is all black with huge bright yellow irregular spots on the head, body and legs. It is walking on the forest floor covered with fallen leaves

🦎 It took some searching 👀 but I found them.

Fire salamander
S. salamandra terrestris

According to the legend, fire salamanders would be able to resist and extinguish fire. It would be cool if it were true, but it's just a myth 😂.

Photographed in Western Switzerland.

A female adder coiled with the head resting over its body. It has a dark brown zig-zag pattern all over its body, from the neck to the tail. The basic colour is light brown. The eye colour is reddish. It has an inverted V-shaped marking on the top of the head and a dark line that goes in diagonal from the back of the eye to the corner of the mouth.

🐍🐍 The (not so) Common Adder... at least in western Europe, adder populations have been declining for the last 30 years.

I photographed it the month of May some years ago in eastern France. I think it was a pregnant female. Unlike most snakes, vipers do not lay eggs, they bear live young.

A greenfing perched on a small branch with blurred background. As all finches, it has a thick and powerfull bill adapted to break and eat seeds. Its body is a beautiful mixture of olive green and grey tinges, with a bright yellow trailing edge of the wings and rump. The eye region is black giving a masked apearance.

🪶 The beautiful greenfinch
Carduelis chloris

A tree trunk with huge holes made by a black woodpecker in order to get at the bug larvae they feed on.

This is the kind of holes they make in the trees

🪶

A black woodpecker perched on a vertical tree. It is all black with a bright red spot on the upper part of the head. The bill is long and there are some holes in the wood just in front of the bill.

🪶
A black woodpecker doing his thing. This is the biggest woodpecker in Europe, reaching 46 cm length and 73 cm wingspan, nearly the size of a carrion crow.

The sound of its drumming is described as a "machine gun salvo" in my field guide 😂 and it is audible up to 4 Km.

Dryocopus martius

A lake where you can see blue water in the distance, but covered with green floating vegetagion in the foreground. A squacco heron is taking flight, with its long light brown neck, pure white wings and belly, and yellow dangling legs.

A lake where you can see blue water in the distance, but covered with green floating vegetagion in the foreground. A squacco heron is poised on low water, its legs underwater and hidden by the vegetation. The heron is all light brown with a very long and thick neck and a black dagger-like bill.

A squacco heron in a crouched position among some floating nenuphars on a lake. It looks all brown, with only the white belly hardly visible. The neck is retracted and looks much shorter than it really is. They do this when hunting, so that they can suddenly extend the neck and snach prey with the bill.

A squacco heron is taking flight, with its long light brown neck, pure white wings and belly. It looks mainly pure white in flight.

🪶
I just love Squacco herons, they look all brown on the ground and then nearly all white when they take flight.

Ardeola ralloides

A little egret flying with blue water in the background. The low sun before sunset gives a warm yellowish tone to the otherwise all white feathers of the little egret. The all black eyes, bill and the long legs contrast with the white feathers. The feet and toes are bright yellow. It flies with its long neck retracted and bent in an S shape and the long legs stretched behind the body.

🪶 Little egret, Bubulcus ibus
Flying before sunset in the Camargue, France

An asp viper coiled over some dry twigs abd dry leaves. It has brown colour (just like the leaves) with black transversr bars on its back. The head scales are smaller than those over the body, except for the one big scale over the eye. The eye is golden yellow with a vertical slit pupil.

🐍 Asp viper, Vipera aspis
Always a pleasure to see them!

Photo from my archive, I don't think they're still active around here.

A grey heron, woth a long, snake-like neck, and a huge bill, much bigger,than its head. It has big, yellow eyes and a dark "eyebrow" over the eye that continues backwards in a long drop-down black prnqmzntal feather. It is poised in high grass and has its wings half open.

A grey heron front view, looking directly at the camera with its yellow eyes.

🪶
Grey heron closeups
Ardea cinerea

An asp viper coiled on a fallen log. The snake is brown with black transverse bars on it's back. There are some green leaves borh in the foreground as in the background.

🐍 Asp viper, Vipera aspis

A couple of Audouin's gulls by the sea shore. There are very small waves and ripples on the dark blue water. The gulls are poised with their feet on the water by knee level. Their head, neck, breast and belly are whites, the wings are grey, the tail is black. The eyes form a black spot on the white head. The bills and legs are dark red. They have a slender build and are more elegant than most gulls.

#AddOcean
🐙🪶
A couple of Audouin's gulls in the mediterranean sea coast.

Larus audouinii

A male deer with full grown antlers stands on a hill with green grass. Behind it, in the distance and slightly unfocused, there is a mountain with conifers.

#addMam
🦊
Red deer
Cervus elaphus