The third time is not the charm... 6-2-2013

After striking out on our attempts to find new herping spots two days in a row, could we possibly be stupid enough to try a new spot again? Hell, yeah! We'd had DW Field Park in Brockton recommended to us by a fellow hiker and, looking it up, saw that it's quite popular! Three ponds! So, we headed out Sunday morning and got there at 9 sharp to begin our herping adventure! Yessir, it was right there! We found it! There's the parking lot!! Let's... it's fucking closed???

The lot opens at noon. Sorry, suckers.

Beaten and bamboozled, we said to hell with it and cut across town to Borderland. We got to the ass-end of Borderland and realised that we'd have to park on the other side... our usual side. So, after this dick-dance of a morning, we hit the trails just after 9:30... not great, considering we'd only have until about 2.

We were interested in vernals, figuring that eggs would have hatched and there might be some larvae. This empty blob said we might be right...

But the pond looked empty, at least along the edges.

I thought I'd heard a guy tell some hikers "snake" about 30 feet ahead of us, so I scooted over there. Sure enough, there was a nice Water Snake!





The next vernal had what we were looking for! Some Toadpoles...

and this Spotted Salamander larvae, who we named George Clinton!


We realised that this was our first Spotted in Bristol County!

There weren't as many Painteds as we'd hoped. It was about 10 degrees cooler than the day before... I wonder where they all were... but there were a few!




We ran onto a chatty hiker with an awesome Border Collie who said that there were some snakes up at the waterfall. That's where we'd been heading, so we picked up our pace (after petting the puppy a bit...)

One small Nerodia slipped into the water and managed to avoid my camera for the duration. This guy, however, was very friendly!

I just had to extract him and let him know I was his pal...



Now, if you know me, you know I loves me some Nerodia, and when they look this pretty at this size... I'm in heaven!


We let him go, much to the disgust of some teenagers.. who had no idea what was going on behind their cute little prom queen bullshit picture!


He was sure a sweetie...

Andrea stayed with him while he got out of the water and looked for a place to nap...



A couple of more Painteds were up catching some rays.


Here's a Bullfrog!


And a Pickerel, who jumped across the path and waited patiently while we fumbled with our cameras. Andrea finally got this shot, which is aces in my book!


Along the hot field where we have never seen anything (and where we were sure we wouldn't today), we saw this Garter on the edge, half hidden by leaves.

He started shaking his midsection... it reminded me of Gibson (our cat) shaking his ass before he takes off like a bolt! Not sure what was up... we both half expected to see babies coming out of the vent.

Nope, but massive amounts of musk did come out... all over me, the snake, Andrea's camera bag and her designer sunhat! I had to use some of my water to bathe the snake and my hands... but he sure looked pretty after!

This was a very beautiful specimen! A quickly fading dorsal stripe, too!



Andrea got this killer shot of a Tree Swallow, making her a birder. I still love her, though.


This American Toad was a sight for sore eyes after all of those foul Fowler's the day before! (Just kidding... really!)


Then we saw movement at our feet... holy crap!! TEENY tiny toads!!


Man!

On the way out, we saw a familiar herp friend... but one that we hadn't seen since it got hot! A Redback!


So, in four hours, we did OK... we still haven't given Borderland the time it needs this year! Both fair-weather outings have been abbreviated.

That said, we spent the rest of our afternoon teaching young Lilah the ins and outs of herping.

She has now graduated from crocheted turtles to Alligator Snappers!