Dear single monthly visitor (excluding bots),

As you can see, I haven't posted in a long time. The unfortunate reason is that I am sick with CFS, have been struggling with it for over a year now, and am still very limited in my activities.

Because of that, excursions are not possible and therefore I cannot provide new stories or pictures.

So, the only thing left is to sometimes post old pictures that I haven’t uploaded so far. I’m actually doing this also for myself, because then I can happily look back to those nice moments.

Let’s start with a picture that’s 19 years (omg) old. One of the animals I always wanted to see in its natural habitat – the meadow viper / Wiesenotter / Vipera ursinii. Here from the subspecies macrops, photographed in Croatia. Back then I was, well, less worried about things, and luckily that speciemen had a quite calm disposition. 

And a panorama picture of the habitat where it was found.

I hope I can give you an update soon, may it be something old or new. ☺️

This year, 10 years have passed since one of the most interesting and intense excursions I’ve participated in so far. Three weeks of travel through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the company of a very cool group of mainly German students. Mostly sleeping in tents, enduring temperatures far below zero, and shortly after that seeing quite a few interesting herp species – it was a really special trip. And as I can’t do excursions in the near future (see here), I thought I’d warm this topic up again to bring back some nice memories – and maybe some of you haven’t seen the pictures yet.

To read the trip reports, click on the pictures below!

Kazakhstan I
Kazakhstan II	Kyrgyzstan

This time, as the random song reference at the end of the article, something for dance-/electropop fans: Laika Party!
I still can't believe that song didn't even make it into the finals!

And the one and only song if you ever travel between Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and Almaty in Kazakhstan: От Бишкека до Алма-Аты (From Bishkek to Almaty)

Back in 2023 we were invited to a wedding in Singapore! Here just a view pics from that trip. We were mainly sightseeing and celebrating, but also had a short exkursion to the Kranji Coastal Nature Park. As far as I had no camera equipment with me, all pics were shot with the mobile phone, therefore low picture quality.

 

The Supertree Grove in the Gardens by the Bay. Many things in Singapore are just gigantomaniacal.

 

A big part of the celebrations was getting the hands painted with henna/Mehndi 😀

 

 

For the first time in my life I saw crocodiles in their natural habitat!! This one was basking right next to the path. All together we could observe 3 crocodiles. The species is Crocodylus porosus / Leistenkrokodil / saltwater crocodile, the biggest crocodile still living.

 

Salt water crocodile/Leistenkrokodil in its natural habitat: Mangrove swamps

The second highlight in Singapore is the amount of monitor lizards you can observe there! In most of the parks there are many of them present, and they are quite relaxed, so you can easily photograph them. Here: Asian water monitor / Varanus salvator / Bindenwaran

 

And here a video of a mating attempt of Varanus nebulosus / Clouded monitor / Nebelwaran, the second very common monitor lizard species.

A baby crocodile!!! 😍 Basking on a tree!!

All in all it was a really nice trip (even though we were only one day in nature), the wedding was really amazing, and I saw crocodiles! And tons of monitors!

The random song reference in the end: Phildel