Vosges

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• The family went to France on vacation again. This time we started in the sparsely populated Vosges mountains in the North east. Lots of game wanders here, like wild cats  (I only saw a dead one in the Ardennes), lynx (although they don’t seem to thrive here lately) and wolves (since 2012 a pair is roaming the Vosges!).
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• In my sparse free time (three kids!) I mainly filmed again, so I can’ t show you the usual lots of photographs…
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• Golden ground beetle (carabus auratus)
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• The woods are pretty nice here; I saw roe deer, a hare, alpine and common newts, nutcrackers,
• a honey buzzard, a red kite, black woodpeckers and more.
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• I removed this big grass snake (natrix natrix) from the camping playing pool,
• since the owner said something about killing them…
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• A very short dip in a stream in the pouring rain gave me some nice brown trout.
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• High Allier valley
  
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• The Allier is one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen.
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• Viperine snakes (natrix maura) can be very numerous in certain places.
• These specialised fish hunters scan the river bank thoroughly before leaving the water after the hunt.
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• On just a couple of square meters different snake heads kept popping up agaian and again, from babies to big mamas.
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• This beautiful young aesculapian snake (zamenis longissimus) just crossed the river.
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• Further more I saw green lizards, minnows, stone loaches, many young brown trout, short toed and bonelli’s eagles, fat dormice, alpine swifts and a praying mantis.
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• Low Allier valley
  
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• About two hundred kilometers downstream the Allier is even more impressive.
• This is mainly because she is allowed to stream almost freely here, not bothered by dikes or dams,
• which is a rare thing these days.
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• Sunrise above the Allier.
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• Young pike
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• Black stork
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• In many parts of France coypus (myocastor coypus) abound.
• One of them even almost bumped into me while I was crossing the river.
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• Roe deer
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• Further more I saw a wild boar crossing the river, a beaver, red partidges, orioles, kingfishers, a merlin (!) and more.
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