Friday Night Bites 8-16-2013

Well, I was home and working!! Working very hard. Andrea got home and asked if I wanted to herp. Hey, I'm only human and decided that a break might be in order, so hard had I been working. Sadly, now two days later, I still have not gotten back to work. Soon. Soon...

She wanted to go back to our Tuesday night place in Suffolk County so she could record the coordinates of the Blue Spotted we saw then. Being a rare animal in this state, we feel it is best to report it to those who are in charge of such things. The Massachusetts Salamander Bureau.

We started things off with a couple of Green Frogs, a large and a medium.


It looked like frogs might be the order of the night as our second encounter (pretty far in, too) was this Bullfrog, who had just crawled out of the water.


Our rocky spot is in danger of being over flipped, so we went well past the area where we usually flip and started on virgin territory! We got this lovely Garter Snake, who has a cute and funny blunt face!



Next up was a shoestring Garter, new to the world and ready to grow big!



Next up was a dark Garter with an interesting yellow spot on his head...



It just wouldn't be any fun if we didn't get a dusk-time Water Snake!

Especially one who resented being awoken from his sleep as much as this guy!



We missed a second Water Snake who outsmarted us and flipped another one who slid off into the night. So far, we've not been able to secure two on one of our weeknight excursions!

We did manage to find another lovely Garter, though!



It should be noted that all of these snakes musked the hell out of me. A dusk musk of the highest order.

By this time, the sun had pretty much set again and we didn't want to get into trouble, so we strapped on our headlamps and headed back to the car. Headlamp herping is fun because you're likely to run into frogs, who just sit there and you can get good shots. Case in point, this Bullfrog...

I got right up in his grille for this one!!

Here are two examples of how much fun photographing frogs at night can be... these are both Green Frogs that were in the path, sitting there like a deer in headlights.






Near the end of the path, I saw a small frog leap past me and I looked through a bush to explore. I only had one shot, but made it count... a new record for Suffolk County, a small Wood Frog!

Check out that camo!

So we were happy with our finds (in such a short time-under two hours!) and headed out to pick up Thai food for dinner! On the road on the way out, there were small frogs hopping across the pavement in front of the car. I jumped out a couple of times, but couldn't find them. They were small and green. Gray Trees? Pickerels? I dunno... better luck next time!

The only downside to the night is... I lost my red hat, which had been on my lap when I jumped out to see about those hopping frogs. A favorite one, too... We made plans to check back here in the morning on our way to Saturday's hike. Did we find it? Tune in to find out!