Looking For Lady Lumps. 6-9-2018

My band had a gig Saturday night but we wanted to get out for a semi-productive walk that morning. We chose a place in Middlesex County that has a field that was created for turtle nesting. Since the nesting season is nearing its end, we'd hoped for a few chelonian lady lumps laying. We got there by 11 AM and hit the trail. It was sunny and hot.

This place can be super-buggy. Gnats drive me out of my gourd sometimes, with 20 or 30 swarming my camera and another 20 or 30 swarming my head. This day wasn't too bad... a half dozen in both spots. I could deal with it. My first photo was of the animal we saw the most of that day... the Eastern Chipmunk.

They were all over!

Our first herp sighting was a distant Painted Turtle that was clearly unimpressed with the mammals on the shore pointing cameras at him.


On the same shore, Andrea announced "a pretty big Water Snake here." It was.

Then, coming from the other end of the log, a small male was approaching. She wagged her tail a bit.

Spooning commenced...

Then this shameless exhibitionist couple proceeded to do it right there while we were watching! We felt so dirty. And took pictures.


We headed back through the buggy wooded area and saw no more animals (other than a multitude of Chipmunks) until we got to an open spot and started seeing Bullfrogs.

We actually heard more Greens calling but never got our eyes on any.

Some Painters were basking but not the stacks we'd hoped for. Perhaps most of them were up nesting.



This next Bullfrog had me thinking it might be a Green but that's no dorsolateral ridge. And that wide face is all Bullfrog.


This one is either a Bullfrog or a doorknob.


A car went right up the path. It confused the hell out of us. This is a pristine nature place. We assumed it was a park worker or something. Still, it scared in all of the turtles except this brave little Painter.


We scoured the cleared nesting area for quite a while but saw no (live) turtles. (Andrea saw a couple of deceased ones.) There were a lot of predated nests. Obviously, some of the ladies have been using the field. Since we struck out, we decided to continue to walk another mile or so up the path to try our luck. We scored another Bullfrog but no more reptiles.


Mother Nature threw us a bone on our way back, though, when this skinny Garter darted away from us.


The ponds had refilled by the time we came back through. This corpulent Vic Diaz look-alike made us smile.


I'll qualify this four-pack as a short-stack.


We sat for a bit and I saw a reddish bird swoop down in the distance. Since I still need a Cardinal on the year, I got the camera ready. When it stepped out, I got its picture and was delighted to learn it was my Lifer bird #171 (#72 on the year), a Brown Thrasher.


Heading back, we saw a few more beautiful Bullfrogs.



Oh well, we'd hoped for nesting turtles but were denied. You just can't rely on nature to give you what you search for. But wait... what is that lump on the edge of the path up ahead? Could it be?

This lady Painted was preparing a nest as we walked by. Look at that leg-work!


So we finally saw what we came for. Plus, we got our 5+ miles of exercise in PLUS I got a quick nap before going out to play at night. Win-win! Thank you, Miss Chelonia.