Thursday, September 15, 2011

A Hoar by any other name... 9-4-2011

I slept in that Sunday. For the first time in many a weekends! (Thank you, Andrea... no thanks to kitties). I thought I had ruined any hopes of herping. But then, we have many places nearby and we hadn't been to Hoar for a while, so...

It was fairly warm, but we doubted we'd see any snakes. Never have at Hoar. Then again, we'd never seen ANY herps there on the first half of the trail! This time, we saw a Spotted Salamander pretty quickly! Unfortunately, none of the photos we got were good enough, so I can't prove it to anyone!

Not far along the trail, however, we found this brute!
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He was resting under a small piece of bark!
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Spotted Salamanders are the reason we love Hoar!

We found a few Redback Salamanders as well.
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The ponds yielded neither frog nor turtle. Bummer, man.

Back into a wooded area, we were flipping and being regarded by a Red Tailed Hawk!
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(Look- he hopped to a different branch!)
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We didn't seem to bother him as we poked around right under his perch. A chipmunk ran by and exhibited some nervous behavior... not surprisingly!

I wondered aloud if we had seen toads at Hoar before. Andrea said "yeah- right along here"... and sure enough... there was one again! A fine young American Toad!
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We ended the herp-lite trip with another, smaller Spottie, who hid his head in shame.
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It was just a quick hike but man, did we get soaked. The humidity must have been about 346%! So we ended without many herps, but the biggest Spottie of the year (so far) and some amusing pics of a hawk. Better than nuthin'!

4 comments:

  1. Queridos amigos,no me canso de ver tantas hermosas criaturas.Es muy bueno el trabajo que están haciendo y como ya les dije alguna vez, tendrían que editar un libro. Un beso para ambos Martha Barnes

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  2. Muchas gracias, Marta! Sus elogios significan mucho para nosotros, porque usted es un artista y tiene los ojos de un artista de la belleza!

    With love- Mike

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  3. Where is this place?
    Try the new buffet in Taunton/Raynham across from Stop and Shop and next to Big Lots.

    Yummy food and cleaner than the Mandarain

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  4. This is in Brookline. We'll be in Taunton Sunday and might well look into the new Buffet!! Thanks for the tip!

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