To Bee or not to Bee... Myles Standish 7-24-2011

Going on a species-specific nature walk is a recipe for disappointment every time. When we go to Cutler, not seeing a Racer makes the trip seem like a failure. So when we decided to spend the day at Myles Standish State Forest looking for Hognosed Snakes, we knew going in that we were doomed for failure.

We tried to cover new ground, poking around many new places in the area. As usual, toads (mostly Fowler's again) were all over, which was good for our search... Hoggies eat toads!



Rows of Painted Turtles were basking but they were very difficult to photograph. But it looked something like this...



We flipped a board that we'd flipped the last time and found another brown phase Red Belly, but this gal was ready to burst!! If this snake ain't gravid, I don't know what is!! Andrea gently caught her for photos.



More delightful toads followed, and some of these giants wanted to inspect the inkwork on my arm! Note the wee one's club foot!



We found a new place up towards the top of the forest. We were greeted by this sign.

Something to be careful of as when I was a wee one myself, I would blow up like a balloon with a sting! I haven't been stung in 40 years... who knows how I'd react now!!

Sure enough, there were bees! They were brought in to keep the cranberry bogs all pollinated, I guess.


Many beautiful sights awaited us within... like the Pee Tree!


The non-Pee Vulture Tree!


This sexy water spider!


And this young Bullfrog!


The habitat was perfect for Hognosed Snakes, but we didn't see any. We headed back towards the lot. We'd heard some motorbikes tooling around nearby (the sandy trails would be perfect for that!) but thought nothing of it.

I started back along a path to see if it connected to the Bullfrog area while Andrea stayed st the trails entrance. Half way down something was buzzing me... I said "what the fuck?" and then heard Andrea yell from 20 feet back "BEES"!!!

That's the code word for "Run Your Ass Off"! I ran in the wrong direction first, then had to double back through the swarm. They were all over us! We ran at top speed for about a 1/2 of a football field's length, but they were still swarming us! So we kept running! I was ripping my shirt off as I had been stung through it. "I've been stung!" After about 100 yards. I just had to stop as I couldn't breath anymore. A fat old bastard like me can't run that far! I gasped for breath. Andrea's hair was wild and her eyes were crazy. But it seemed as though we'd finally gotten far enough away from their nest. I'd been stung twice.

Evidently, the motorbike had stirred up the nest before I headed down the path..

My reaction was not bad. My shoulder sting hurt a bit but only swelled a little. My arm sting wasn't bad at all. Yay!!

We headed to the car, shaken but not stirred. We found some sweet wild blackberries to console us. When I went to put my shirt on, there was a bee in it. I shook him out and ran away for a while.

We got into the car and regrouped. We decided to walk for a bit more and went to a long sandy trail that we'd seen when we were lost the last time. It was just the tonic to remind us that there is beauty amidst the horror of nature!! And TOADS!!!




It became evident that we weren't going to find any Hognosed Snakes, but we enjoyed another 2 hours of trail walking. Eventually, we decided to concentrate on Low Bush Blueberries which were in season and picked a container full of them, which we enjoyed for a few days to come!

So... I'm not allergic to bees now, it seems! As it turns out, I'd rather get stung by these fuckers than get mosquito bites! Skeeters make me itch like a mofo- a bee sting is over fairly quickly!