Dice Snakes

I decided to find out some info on dice snakes because we saw one last week on our trip to the cave click here to read the full story.  

• The female Dice snake (Natrix tessellata) is bigger than the male they can get up to 130 cm long!

• The under belly of this snake is orange or sometimes yellow, top of the snake olive brown with black spots similar to a dice :)

• Normally will live near rivers,ponds and lakes its main diet is fish but will also feed on frogs, toads and tadpoles.

• This snake is not venomous!! For it's defence it will let out a very horrible smell just like a Grass snake ( Natrix natrix) and it will also fake dead.

•  This snake lays 10 to 35 eggs!!!!!

•  Some times the dice snake will lay its eggs next to the grass snake eggs

Dice snake

Dice snake swimming

Dice snake eating a fish

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Amazing trip to the cave

We set off to some caves at around 10:00 am. The first half an hour was HORRIBLE we got lost about two times and we were looking for fuel for AGES. We had finally found a petrol station, but the building itself was terrible the walls had huge cracks in it. Anyway we had got the fuel and set off to the cave. After about another hour of driving we had to stop for water, we found a beautiful fresh water tap were there were lots of MASSIVE tadpoles, leaches and even a newt. We have only seen 2 newts in  Bulgaria and apparently they are very rare, so that was an awesome find. But nothing to what we saw later :). We had filled up our water bottles and carried on driving and driving and driving and we FINALLY got there. We crossed a huge bridge (under it was a wide river) and next to the river there was a little stream and a small log in it.  I looked closely and saw a tiny cute baby terrapin who was just sitting there in the sun. I looked at him for a little bit and went to see the cave with my family When I saw it my mouth dropped, it was beautiful, it was full of life here is a quick video of it from the outside!
  

As soon as we went in it we could feel the temperature drop it was fairly cold and damp but it was extremely beautiful. There were holes in the roof of the cave where the sun light came in and there was a crystal clear river with little fish in it. I walked into the cave a little and I saw lots and lots of bats in a strikingly dark hole, there were at least 1000!!!  This cave is home to 35,000 bats in the winter time.  We looked around the whole cave and afterwards, I ran to the fields looking for snakes because there were many  fields and luckily I found two Auescalapin snakes mating!!!!!!

I went to the car to put the camera away because I wanted to save some of the battery in case we might see som thing else. I went back to the Auescalapian snakes and on the way there I saw an adder, but it quickly slithered off into a hole. So far the trip had been awesome! I told my dad about the snakes and we got in the car to drive back home. On the way back my dad was driving on the road when he shouted that there was a snake on the road and a car was going to kill it.  SO my Dad and I got out of the car and started running towards the snake, and you wouldn't believe what specie if snake it was - a horned nosed viper, that's only the most  poisonous snake in Bulgaria!! We couldn't touch it and a car was coming very, very close to us so my Dad got the snake by his shoe and flicked it on the side of the road away from the traffic. That's when I got some video footage of it. My dad is a hero :)
Here is the video of the snake :)

After that happened we were thirsty so we stopped at a tap and this time their was  A DICE SNAKE!!!!!!! My Dad wasn't sure about that identification, so he wouldn't let me touch it :( ;( ;( I went to get the camera to film it but the battery was dead (NOOOOOOOOOO) so we got in the car and drove home

And that is the story to our amazing trip to the cave!  







    

Lots Of Aesculapian snakes Snakes

My friend and I put a rug down and waited patiently for about a week before going to lift it up. Luckily, we found a baby snake which looked a little like an adder so I didn't touch it but when I got home I found out it was actually a baby Auscalapian snake. I managed to take a picture of it, but it  didn't turn out too good ;) Here it is.

Then my dad invited me to go down to our forest garden to lift up some straw bales,

I instantly said YES. We started to lift them up, I think it was the second one we lifted when we saw a HUGE AND BEAUTIFUL Auscalapian snake. We took some cool pics and let it be :)

Here are some of the cool pics we took :)

We also saw a (Bufo bufo)- common toad 

Here is a beautiful pic I took of it :)

So that is what we found under the bales. On our way back I decided to lift up my rug and to my surprise I found another baby Auscalapian snake. I could tell it was different snake that's why I picked it up and took some ace pictures of it.

My friend took this picture :) ;D

   

This snake even bit me :)

A little Info on Auscalapian snakes

This snake can grow up to 2 meters  - that is as big as my father :)

Baby Auscalapian snakes look al lot like baby Grass snakes (Natrix natrix).

The first time I saw a baby Auscalapian snake I thought it was a grass snake :)

This snake likes warm but not hot weather!

Strange

They normally eat rats some of them up to 130cm!!! The baby's main diet is lizards. 

WOW

The snakes normally will be seen early in the morning or late afternoon.

What!!!!????