It was pretty chilly... right around 60°, but windy and raw. I dared not remove my hooded sweatshirt. The only herp we saw on the way to the tracks was this wee Redback.
When we got there, we went up to the tracks, knowing trains don't run on Sundays. It was a bleak vista that spread out around us...
We reached a point where we sometimes split up... Andrea took some stairs down to the path along the bottom while I stayed up by the tracks. We were still in view of each other, but this way we could cover more ground. Within 50 feet, I got to a railroad tie laying off to the side and flipped it, like I had many times before. This time, there was a wad of black coils and a surprised head popped up to peer at me... ice cream...
I grabbed the Racer and held it aloft as I quickly made my way back towards the stair area... yelling "Ice Cream"!!! Andrea saw what I had and came running up top!
We had finally found our first Racer of the year!! Yay!! We could now get ice cream! And it was a beautiful specimen, to boot... about 3 feet long.
Of course it bit me a few times and even bit Andrea on the finger tip when she wasn't even holding it, but hey... we were going to get ice cream!
Being the adults that we are, we continued herping instead of running to the nearest ice cream joint.
It stayed pretty cool... it never really got higher than 60°. Andrea flipped a nice Wolf Spider.
Then we found some "twins"... a Redback and a Red Eft!
This nearby Leadback was upset that he missed out on making a Benneton ad.
These three picked up the slack... the United Colors of Plethodon!
Our last herp was this nice Leadback.
We actually did some shopping and had lunch before heading over to Ron's Ice Cream in Dedham... to enjoy our ice cream, compliments of the first Racer of 2014.
I have already called the 2015 Ice Cream Snake... an Eastern Garter. We should be enjoying a nice cone in late March that way.
I think I broke the seal on ice cream...I want more!
ReplyDeleteNo kidding!!
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