Friday, August 3, 2012

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!
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And a Bullfrog...
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Then I started noticing an abundance of this year's nemeses (nemesi?)... Pickerel Frogs! This guy was knee-high in a bush!
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There were plenty of young ones hopping around as well!
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Can I interest you in a tiny Fowler's Toad too?
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I'm inclined to call this decidedly NOT tiny toad an American, though I could be wrong. Gorgeous at any rate!
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While taking his picture, we got photo-bombed by a nutty Ribbon Snake!
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We let him have his own photo-shoot.
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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!
Melanistic Toad
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He was, in addition to being melanistic, tiny!
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The day brought more Pickerels
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And toads
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and a small Painted Turtle!
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He was nipping at leaves floating in the pond!

We found a groovy Grasshopper molt!
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Best of all, we found shitloads of Lowbush Blueberries!
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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!
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Surprisingly, there wasn't much chelonian basking going on!

This Bullfrog, however, was...
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Andrea had a brave dragonfly check out her snake-skin toes!
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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.
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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!
Beautiful Lilah



2 comments:

  1. ¡Bello,bello litle sapito! ¡Chuic!!!!!!! (beso)
    besos x 3 Martha

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Besos X 3" me hace sonreĆ­r!!!!!

    ReplyDelete