All aboard the Gravy Snake! 5-12-2012

We were in New Hampshire for this sunny Saturday but figured that, on the way home, we'd stop off and check out my friend Ryan's favorite local herping grounds... Ward Reservation in Andover MA. He always finds multiple Garters and some Water Snakes there so, in the interest of future hikes, we scoped it out.

Beautiful place! We got there at almost 5 PM... not exactly prime herpin' time, but it was still nice and warm. We went to "the bog", as Ryan always finds stuff on the boardwalk there.

Sure enough, there was some grass moving right of the boardwalk... I knelt to investigate and a small Water Snake jetted away. Sad to not get a picture, but in his escape, he scared the crap out of this massive Bullfrog who jumped into a good photo spot!

A little further along, we saw a nice Green Frog posing for us!

Further up, in a shadier area, I was about 10 feet in front on Andrea, who had stopped to investigate a "whooshing" sound. I went back and saw the cause of the sound... a slender Garter Snake!

We had to look really close to make sure he wasn't a Ribbon, so slim was he!

We called him the gravy snake because we didn't really expect to see anything on this walk!

On the way out, we saw a Green Frog hop across the boardwalk, which was amusing. Also, this raggedy Red Admiral posed for us!

So, this was all in about 50 minutes. The place, as it turns out, is huge. We're planning a NH herp trip soon, and Ward Reservation is definitely a stop we'll make on the way. I can imagine hitting it at 9 or 10 AM would be fruitful... if herps are fruit.