I’m out of shape. I decided to walk up the local mountain to watch the sunset, but I arrived five minutes late, even though I sped up at the end. Should have started my journey ten or fifteen minutes earlier. I saw the setting sun at foot, but the photos were total disasters.

On the way there I picked two handful of blackberries in the forest. Delicious!

Today was the second time in my life that I saw a grass snake in the wild. They can easily be recognized by the yellow “ears”. Unfortunately, this one was run over. :-( But I jumped at the opportunity to photograph it as it didn’t escape in a fraction of a second like my first encounter three years ago. Still, poor fellow. :-(

Run over grass snake

On the way home, a deer jumped out of the brush in front of me and headed down the forest road before it went back in the other side. As always, that’s nice.

I also had to slow down a bunch of times because of frogs or toads on the paths. Not sure which ones, it was already after dark. I guesstimate it must have been 60-70 amphibians in total, maybe more. Some of them did not move to the wayside but rather into the middle of the track, right in front of me. Crazy suicide frogs! There were four reeeeaaaallly close calls. I could just avoid stepping on them after they tried to hop right under my boot. Not a centimeter to spare. No toads were harmed during my trip. Phew!

Once I had to stop completely because of the large activity ahead of me. A larger (about the size of half a palm) individual surrounded my foot and then jumped against my heel. Twice! What the heck!? :-D But suuuper cool experience. I’m very glad I actually went out. Totally worth it. I met so many amazing animals. Don’t care about the missed sunset a single bit.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Poor little guy 😢 Also eww I hate snakes 🤣 I have a bit of a phobia 😅

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org That is one flat snake. 🫤 Looks quite pretty, what’s left of it anyway.

What’s going on with the frogs? I guess they can’t properly see in the dark? 🤔

That large “individual” towards the would have freaked me out. Was it at least furry? Or was it a huge spider? 🤪

@prologic@twtxt.net We basically have no snakes around here. Just the grass snake and the common European adder. Or so I think. While it’s super hard to come across the harmless first one, it’s even rarer to find the little bit dangerous latter. Both are very shy. I never saw an adder. They probably do not live here in my area. A workmate told the other day that he accidentally run over one with this bicycle as a schoolboy, though.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah, I was happily suprised that the grass snake was still in this good shape.

I’ve no idea. Not sure how well frogs or toads see in the dark, but I would think if there is some noise coming towards you, you escape away and not towards it. Maybe they did not recognize me as a threat but were just curious?

This larger individual was also a frog or toad. :-) It didn’t freak me out at all, it was super cool to watch. But I thought, what an idiot. :-D I mean, hopping against me once is alright, but then trying again is a bit silly. It then stopped and sat next to my boot. About half a centimeter away. I waited a few seconds and carefully moved on.

Turns out, there are seven species in Germany (two of them being venomous), but in my wider area there seem to be just the two: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Schlangenarten_in_Deutschland Probably just even one, the common European adder is more to the south, just like I thought. But maybe with the climate getting hotter and hotter, they migrate north to me, too.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

But maybe with the climate getting hotter and hotter, they migrate north to me, too.

And a lot of other nasty stuff with it, bugs, spiders, you name it. Didn’t we migrate all this way up north to be free from such Ungeziefer? 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Right, not looking forward to disease-spreading mozzies and critters like that. We must become @stigatle@yarn.stigatle.no’s neighbors. :-)