First Herps of 2013! What took us so long? 1-12-13

Well, we've been just nutty with the need to herp. There's been snow, ice and nasty New England winter-type stuff. But you just can't herp in the winter! Can you?

With temps in the mid-40s, drizzly rain, fog and no sun, we headed over to a Salamander-friendly hike area in Norfolk County. The one behind a school. In Brookline. It was about 2 PM. The entrance looked a little something like this:


It was only about 15 minutes before we found a Redback!


And some more!




This one slid into a hole before we got the shot! Are those her eggs, or slug eggs?

I'm calling slug.

Let me reiterate... it was January 12th!


Yet the Redbacks were up! Here is our calendar shot, courtesy of Andrea...


I flipped a fairly heavy puddingstone and Andrea gasped "Oh my Gawd!"... there were 8 (!) Redbacks and Leadbacks under it!

They were scattering everywhere, but we got a few good shots!


This is the group retreating into holes and under leaves, which was nice, because I didn't have to move them myself to return the rock to it's original position!


Me an' my puddin'stone.


It took a while, but we finally found a couple more further along... there are two in this (not so hot) picture... you can just barely see the shine of one in a hole to the right of the other guy...


So, yeah... it was Winter.


This Muskrat didn't seem to mind the icy water!


Even all bundled up, Andrea cuts a fine figure of a herper!


We only added two more Redbacks, but they were beauties!

The shy one came out for his close-up, eventually.


So... we had about 18 Redbacks on January 12th. Earliest herps ever. By my estiamtion, 2013 will be a good year because if we're chompin' at the bit so bad now... just how nutty will we be when the snakes come out?!