7-28-2012 Massasoit gets me wet

We got a very late start and got to Massasoit at about NOON!!! *gasp* Would we see anything? Let's find out...

We did.

First up was a plethora of Green Frogs!


And a Bullfrog...


Then I started noticing an abundance of this year's nemeses (nemesi?)... Pickerel Frogs! This guy was knee-high in a bush!


There were plenty of young ones hopping around as well!


Can I interest you in a tiny Fowler's Toad too?


I'm inclined to call this decidedly NOT tiny toad an American, though I could be wrong. Gorgeous at any rate!


While taking his picture, we got photo-bombed by a nutty Ribbon Snake!


We let him have his own photo-shoot.


Inspecting Ribbon Snakes... serious fecking business!

One of the more interesting finds of the year was next... a melanistic toad, looks like a Fowler's!


He was, in addition to being melanistic, tiny!


The day brought more Pickerels


And toads



and a small Painted Turtle!

He was nipping at leaves floating in the pond!

We found a groovy Grasshopper molt!


Best of all, we found shitloads of Lowbush Blueberries!


We got to our favorite pond and found it very high... in fact much of it was flooded! We slipped off our shoes and took a look!


Surprisingly, there wasn't much chelonian basking going on!

This Bullfrog, however, was...


Andrea had a brave dragonfly check out her snake-skin toes!


I chased a small (12 inch or so) black snake through the underwater grass, but he eventually handed me my ass. More than likely a Water Snake. We did find a nice long Garter skin near some rocks. I flipped the rock and saw nothing, but a Garter started taking off from nearby. Andrea couldn't form the word "Garter" but said... "omni-momni-bombida...maybe he's the owner of this skin"! She managed to paraphrase one of our favorite movie lines!

The Garter, it seems, didn't want to be handled.





So we let him go.

Then it started to rain, so we put our cameras into plastic bags for the time being.

Sadly, we weren't able to get a good shot of a Musk Turtle basking (?) at the very top of a steep 5 foot stump! We fumbled through our bags when he launched and plopped gracelessly into the pond! Man, I love Musks!

The rain kept up fairly steadily, so we just went on our merry way, checking back on the Ribbon Snake (he was there) and heading home.

A fun day despite the late start!

Two days later, my Granddaughter Lilah Marie Barter was born! Another wonderful sighting!