Decorating Our Christmas Tree

My Mum, brother and I went for a walk in the forest. I was looking for another Fire salamander,  my Mum wanted to get spring water and look for a small Christmas tree. In one of my previous posts I wrote about the big storm we experienced here in the Balkan mountains, click here to read about it. So anyway,  my mum thought it would be good to cut the top off one of the trees that fell in the storm.  When we got to the forest my brother and I started to play hide and seek then my mum said we had to go - she had found a fallen tree and cut the very top from it. When we got home we decorated the tree it  looked really good.

Night life on the Streets of Shipka

My brother and I were going to make a video on the streets at night. As soon as I went out onto the street, I saw 4 or 5 locusts which were gigantic. My brother also found a green toad which he gave to me and it started to release some kind of liquid that smelt like dung and urine mixed together, it reeked! We were just about to start our video, when a female horn beetle flew into my brother's hair. He started screaming and shaking his head!  After about 2 minutes of screaming he finally shook it off. We were going home when I found a huge millipede.  I picked it up and it smelt of rotten eggs!! As soon as I got home I washed my hands and ate my dinner :)

Here is some information about green toads:

European green toads will change their colour in response to heat and light changes.
Female toads are larger than male toads and can lay 9,000 to 15,000 eggs at a time.
The toads mainly eat crickets and caterpillars. 

Here is a picture my dad took of a green toad in Koprinka

Green toad

How I Found This Fire Salamander

Hey guys today I'm making a Blog about how I found this salamander in the video


Me and my mum went walking up in the forest for spring water and it happened to be that I brought my camera. So whilst we were walking in the forest I spotted a beautiful Fire salamander I picked it up a few times and I filmed it. It was strange because last time I touched a Fire salamander I felt very sick but this time I didn't

INFO ABOUT FIRE SALAMANDERS 

Fire salamanders live in central Europe forests and in hilly areas. They need water to lay their eggs. They come out at night or when its raining to eat,Fire salamanders eat slugs,worms and insects.
They can also eat newts and young frogs!!!. The Fire salamander can grow up to 25 centimetres long.
Some are potentially dangerous to human life!!!!

Some baby Fire salamanders I found

Some baby  fire salamanders I found in a puddle about 2 years ago

Winter Is Here

When I woke up one morning I saw there was lots of snow outside, I ran down side with excitement to find out that there was no internet or electricity ;(. We phoned the internet people and they said it won't come back for a week!!! So, then we decided to phone the electricity company they said it won't come back for 3 or 4 days. I said to myself, "WTH!? That means I can't charge my tablet and I can't play on it for 4 days!!!!" but then I went on to think that maybe I can get away with not going to school.   The snow was 1 metre in depth and there were quite a few snow blizzards. So just when I was thinking about not going to school, I heard mum say , " I don't think Dylan should go to school tomorrow " I felt like the most lucky man on earth.  At dinner, it felt as though we were living in the stone age because we cooked on our life saving fire.  We had spaghetti for dinner. That same night, every now and then there were huge blue flashes coming from the sky and apparently they were electrical surges due to damage caused by the blizzards.  The next morning we saw how much damage the storm had done, loads and loads of the trees had fallen down and when I say loads, I mean literately thousands of pine trees had snapped from the mountain!!!!!!! That was one of the worst storm I've seen, but it wasn't quite as bad winter 2012 when our roof fell off!!

Top 5 Favourite Birds In My Garden

Great tit - Parus major
They feed on insects and spiders
during the breeding season, the tits prefer to feed on protein rich caterpillars to there young
for more information on the great tits click here










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Blue tit - Cosmopolitan foragers 
The yellowness of a male blue tits breast is an indication of the number of yellow-green caterpillars he has eaten, and a brighter breast is more attractive to the females.











Chaffinch - Fringilla coelebs
Chaffinches are known to live for 14 years!!!
Curiously, its typically the females that migrate as the males prefer to remain in northern Europe.









Bullfinch- Pyrrhula pyrrhula
They have an appetite for the buds of fruit trees
and can can cause severe damage.
This problem was so serious that at one time they were
trapped. With bullfinch numbers declining in recent year,this can now only be done with a licence.

Green Wood Pecker- Picus viridis 
One of there favourite foods is ants
they return day after day to their favourite ant hill
I saw a green woodpecker today eating our grapes

How I Met SkilleR

I went to the Uzana festival again, about a week ago and i meet SkilleR (a very famous beat boxer). So now I'm going to write about how i saw him.

I was sitting on a chair when I heard some sounds that sounded like beat box after about 20 seconds of hearing the sounds i realized that it was defiantly beat box. Then I thought to my self amagian if that was SkilleR so I went to ask a lady  who was doing the beat box? and she said SkilleR (lol) I think that was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me so  ran and ran to the stage and shore enough there he was doing his breath taking beat box!!. So after that I went running to my brother and  tripped over a stick and fell over :) I got back up and told my brother the good news and we went back to the stage to watch him, he was only on the stage for 10 minuets because he was practicing for tonight. The reason i knew that was because i was talking with SkilleRs  girl friend :) SHE CALLED SkilleR  OVER TO TALK WITH US!! :) :) :).
SkilleRs girl friend  said he will be on the stage at 11:00pm tonight! :) (ofcorse we were going to watch him)

7 HOURS LATER

Finally it was 11:00pm and SkilleR came up the stage With another guy called pavel ( by the way SkilleR is an Bulgarian) So we listened to there Breath taking beat box for about 2 hours and went to bed :)

THE END  

My top 10 favourite snakes

10.  Long nosed vine snake-
the long nosed vine snake has a green tongue!!!
It manly eats frogs and lizards.
although they are venomous they cant do any serious threat to humans.




9.Tentacled snake-
they are aquatic snakes from south-eastern Asia
It can move slowly on land.
more info -  here



8. Feathered tree viper-
It is a highly venomous snake
its known of its huge eyes and bristle like scales, they grow up to 75 cm long

7. Leaf nosed snake-
this is defiantly one of the weirdest snake on the planet it manly  feeds on lizards these breath taking snakes are only found in Madagascar.



6.Burrowing asp-
This snake can borrow down in the ground
this snake is from Africa it feeds on rodents.




5. Horn nosed viper-
I saw this viper today!!! it is defiantly one of my favourite snakes
it has a small horn on its head and a zigzag marking on its back just like an adder (i didn't have a camera :( so I cant show you the snake I saw)



4.Sea snake-
They belong to the same family as the cobras and coral snakes.
there found in the pacific and the Indian ocean. They are extremely poisonous.


3.Worm snake
A full adult is 15 inches long!!
this snakes digs down to the ground
they only come out of the ground at morning  and night.

2.Spider tailed viper-
this epic snake has a tail which, when wiggled,looks enticingly
spider- like to its arachnid - guzzling pray.


1.Yellow bellied sea snake-
This is defiantly my favourite snake i love the colouration on it
they are helpless on land
it is an poisonous snake.