Friday, September 16, 2011

Eft You, Ponkapoag! 9-5-2011

OK, the weather was supposed to be crappy, so we didn't plan a Labor Day hike. It turned out that the weather wasn't crappy at all! In fact it was pretty nice! So, with a late start and all, we decided to hit Ponk!

It was pretty empty people-wise, which I love. One woman in a group asked what we were looking for and I said snakes. She said "ewww, gross... why?" and I got all passive-aggressive and said "because we love animals". I hate humans.

Anyhoo, it was light on the animals for some reason but here's what we did see...

A Pickerel Frog! Nice catch, Mike!
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This Praying Mantis was a real cutie!
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Andrea spied this Water Snake skin in the water... it was massive... probably about 3" wide which, even taking water swelling and flatness into consideration, it was from a thick snake! Who knows how long he might have been!
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Andrea spied this little noggin sticking up... was it a frog? A turtle? Nope! Turned out to be a Water Snake... not the owner of that skin, however!
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This guy was a decent 2-footer, but definitely not the freshly-shed behemoth! He stayed just out of reach... maybe he was the same guy from last time!
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This wee Painted Turtle was catching some rays... all 2 1/2" of him! He was but a niblet.
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We were well into the hike... 2/3 of the way around the pond, before we saw our first Redback! This photo sucks, but it's all we got to prove his existence!
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We'd said we weren't going to flip at the campgrounds but there was only a small family of 3 there and they were in the water, so I flipped some stones. One stone, the size of a Frisbee, had a beautiful Milk Snake under it! A biggie, too!
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What a gorgeous one! Caramel background, rich red saddles!
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The kids swimming came up to touch him. As soon as they left, he nipped my pinky finger. It bled like mad! Hilarious!
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One of my favorite things about my Al Feldstein tattoo is the great pictures that sometimes come up... like this one:
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We put him down and he hung out in a pile of sticks for a while, then retreated right back to the same small rock he was under before!
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After I stopped bleeding all over everything (he got me right in a good spot, I guess!) I found this lovely Leadback!
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As we headed back to the car, we continued to flip. Under one piece of reddish bark, we found our first ever Red Eft at Ponkapoag!! 5 years of herping here and this is our first!
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He was tiny and colored so much like the bark that we nearly missed him!
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It's always nice to add a new species to a place! Especially when it's our favorite place! So, all told, this one was a quickie (for Ponk). Only about 3 1/2 hours but we're calling it a success!

2 comments:

  1. ¡Qué tatuajes!!!¡Realmente sos aficionado al terror.!!!!¿Andrea también? voy a pensar en ustedes para una ilustración terrorífica.Martha

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  2. Esa es mi tatuaje reciente de una cubierta Tales From The Crypt de edad, dibujado por Al Feldstein! Mi libro de terror cómico favorito!

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