Ch-ch-ch Hh-hh-hoar and Allendale

Friday the 13th, April 2012

After that early March warm-up, things got back to shitty for a while and it was cold! Too cold for herps, so they went back to their cool weather ways. We had to content ourselves with a reptile show, where Andrea got cuddly with a bucket of Savannah Monitors!


In the interim, there has also been very little rain. Added to the lack of snow this winter, Massachusetts has been in a drought condition. How would this affect the animals?

Well, after weeks of hoping to get back out, we found ourselves on a 4 days weekend that was supposed to have decent weather! First up (since it was supposed to be only in the mid to upper 50s) would be Hoar Sanctuary... aka Salamander Heaven! (Salamanders don't seem to mind it a bit cooler!)

It didn't take long for Andrea to find this large Redback!


I like this shot because you can see how blue the sky was... reflected on her skin!


Her??? Yes- her! You can see her eggs in her belly... a springtime thing.


Andrea next found this brute!


Then I joined in and together we found dozens!



Leadbacks, too!



What the hell is this? And why the hell am I letting it crawl on my arm???

Oh, it's a Soil Centipede!

The weather was much milder than forecast, so while we still had some life in us, we headed over to Allendale (after some burrito reinforcement!)


Things picked right up where they'd left off... more Redbacks!




Andrea worked hard and finally got a great shot of a Mourning Cloak butterfly!


Duck Pond didn't have any ducks present, but this wee (about 3" tip to tip) Painted Turtle was up catching some rays!



This Bullfrog was hanging out in some super-scuzzy algae-clogged water. It didn't seem to bother him, but it bothers me. Let's hope some rain will clear up some of the sludgy water that I've been seeing!


So... dozens of Redbacks, a Bullfrog and a Turtle... beats the shit out of working! We planned on herping 4 days in a row this weekend... could we do it? (Seeing as I'm writing this Sunday night after getting back from the 3rd straight day, I'll say yeah- it's looking pretty good!)