Slithering Out of September.

It's hard to believe that we're nearing the end of the 2018 normal Herp Season and getting ready for the winter beach walks. At least September, which was plagued by shitty weather for much of the time, went out on a high note.

Andrea Sees Urban DeKay. 9-26-2018

On her walk to the train station, along Hyde Park Avenue in the Roslindale section of Boston, Andrea has seen Garter Snakes with some regularity but in a spot that she always thought should have snakes, she never saw any. Until this warm Wednesday morning, after a night of heavy rain, when she saw two DeKay's Snakes (Northern Brown for you boring people) laying on some leaves. That makes two species on this bustling street in the concrete jungle.


One Chance to Get It Right in Plymouth. 9-29-2018

Facing the unusual occurrence of decent weather on the weekend, we decided to give it one more shot in Plymouth County. We still needed some First-of-Years that can be found there, including Hognoses, Greens and, unbelievably, Ribbons. We got there a bit before noon, when the sun was up, though it was cool. Having had a lot of rain over the previous few days, we weren't surprised to see quite a few Redbacks. Here are some salamander samples.




Andrea flipped this extraordinary specimen. I had never seen one with yellow on it before, but this one clearly has mustard yellow splotching and dots along its back.


Walking along a wide path, we were keeping our eyes open, scanning as best as we could. Just off of the path, I spied some banding and we got our FOY Hognose. Its just a wee hatchling. It was all flattened out; obviously, it saw us first.

When we got closer for photos...

It got pretty calm in Andrea's hands.

What a pleasant surprise.

Our next animal was another snake... a shiny Ringneck.



Our last sight at this spot was this small Fowler's, who posed atop some blades of grass.


Our next stop was a bog area. I needed some anurans in my life. It didn't take long to see a mess of Bullfrogs, both small 'uns and bigguns.




This Painted Turtle was extremely patient... he sat there while I photographed him and a noisy-assed kid and his father were trying to see him.


This Green Frog was in a tough position for me to get a decent photo but I'm glad I tried... it was the only Green on the day.

I had less luck with a large Pickerel. I actually had to resort to catching it. I tried to calm it, and it jumped off, unphotographed. That loss would later loom large.

We were extremely surprised (and happy) to see this young Spotted Salamander down by the bog.


Our next stop was at a large pond that is great for turtles. Unfortunately, a fishing contest had just finished right there and there weren't many turtles who had come up since the coast had cleared. Two brave Painters were what we saw.



I lost Andrea for a bit, then looked back to see her hanging back by a sign. I called to her and couldn't hear her response. Going back, I saw she had a nice Racer in front of her.

Why, you ol' snake in the grass.

A guy on a bike and his running dog passed right by the snake before I got to it. I thanked the Racer for staying put and waiting for me.

Medic Alert... with Redbacks!


Nearing the end of our walk at this spot, I saw a black tail go over a log. Another Racer. I put my gear down and crawled intro the brush, hoping to find it. It started to come out Andrea's side and she got a good photo.

Not knowing if she got a good shot, I caught it. A small group of people who had seen me (and wondered what the crazy person was doing in the bushes) got a little talk about snakes. Of course, a small Garter or a DeKay is a better show-and-tell snake but the Racer had its good points too. "Do they bite?" Yes.

The little nipper was a good specimen.


Before leaving this spot, we spied some distant Painters enjoying the late September sun.


Our next section of hike is a shady dirt path and to be honest, it was getting cool. Also, we were both pretty tired by now. (And Andrea's tendons were bothering her, a fact I didn't learn until days later.) But we persisted and it paid off when Andrea saw a second hatchling Hognose, again just off of the trail.


My goodness, they are ridiculous.


With a little more spring in our step, we carried on but we had also decided on a quicker turn-around point. Gettin' old is a bitch. But it was all good when we saw another young Fowler's, again posing on grass!


A deep, dark burgundy Leadback.


The turn-around spot had a wonderful surprise under a rock... a tiny coil of Ringneck.

Squeee!

I'm not sure how elegant it really is, but this is an Elegant Stinkhorn.


Back in the car, we decided to make one last stop. There's a beach that is hell on Earth during the summer but it is now closed so we went in to explore the field and woods that surround it. I really wanted a 10th species and we'd seen Redbellies here before. (That darn Pickerel!) Well, we never made that goal but Andrea flipped the fattest, most Orca-like Spotted Salamander I've ever seen.

This fatty is not an adult or anything... it is a 2" recent metamorph. Needless to say, Andrea saw no bugs or invertebrates in the area. I never got to see it. When she brought me back to the spot, it had gone underground. I'm relieved that it actually could squeeze back into his hole.

So, we call that a good day. Nine species, one an FOY, and lots of sun. Considering we had family plans for Sunday, it was good to have such a successful Saturday.

Pre-Family Garters 9-30-2018

OK, well... you know us. It was sunny (if cool) on Sunday morning so we took the long-cut to Andrea's mum's house in order to swing by a possible Green Snake spot. The place, while is does have the difficult to find Greens, is also a great Garter spot. It is an unlikely place; tons of broken glass and salty water, but Garters thrive there and they're all very beautiful.

We saw no Greens but we started out with a shoestring Garter, coiled on the top of a rocky cliff, grabbing the warmth of the sun.


Looking down the rocky slope, we could see Garter garland laying out in the patches of sun.



The fruit of the Garter Bush.


Our last two finds were both flipped, snoozing Garters. Thery never knew we were there.



And that was that. September ended. The season is rapidly coming to a close. But we never consider it over. Soon, we'll be dipping for Two-lined larvae through some ice. Intredip and stupid. That is us.

Watershed Blitz Bop. 9-22-2018

We woke up early that Saturday morning, stiff and achey. But we had to get to Chester, MA by 8:30 AM. Luckily, we were less than an hour away, having stayed outside of Northampton for the night. Dawn was beautiful.


This day was the annual Watershed Blitz, an event we've been honored to be a part of for the last four years. We get assigned a section of the Westfield River to lead a group of interested parties as the "Frog and Newt" specialists. I don't know about being specialists but we do love the critters. So, basically, we go herping and teach the people in our group about the animals, their habitat and their conservation. The meet-up was at the Chester Railway Museum, which was a very cool place to look around.


This event is meticulously planned by exceptionally skilled people and each group (us, insects, plants, water, etc) all had boxes full of gear, first aid, GPSs and data sheets. It looked like we had 8 people signed up for the ol' Frog and Newt group, plus us and our "assistant" Susan. (She was to keep track of the finds.) Well, it was time to leave and nobody in our group had arrived! We waited for a bit but time was wasting so we headed out. Happily, Andrea, Susan and I were joined by a lovely person named Lee.

Personally, having just four of us was kind of good... we all got along well and enjoyed each other's company. It was much easier to pass along what we know to the small group and learn from them things that they're more knowledgeable in. We got to our section of the river and headed up the trail.


It was overcast and pretty cool, low 60s, and we figured our day would be snakeless. But amphibians should be present. Our first sighting was a small Pickerel Frog that jumped into a leaf-bottomed puddle and disappeared. Then another. I was off to a bad start! Then we found this wet Redback.


Right then, Lee said, "there's a snake!" Sure enough and much to my surprise, there was indeed a snake there.

This long, skinny guy looked like a Ribbon at first but a closer look showed it to be a nice Eastern Garter Snake. One laying in the cool water in 62° temps, no less.


We'd promised Efts. They're all over the place in Franklin County, probably in most people's yards. So, it was an easy promise to keep.


Another good-sized Redback.


One of the many things that Susan taught us was... this is Wintergreen!

We all enjoyed many refreshing chews.

This was a typical trailside puddle, continuously being fed by trickling water, where small frogs would jump in and disappear.

Even getting up close and personal didn't help me find them.


We encountered some nice caterpillars, too... the Hickory Tussock caterpillar (no touching!)...


and this member of the Symmerista genus (thank you, Teá!) that we pulled from a puddle.


Since I was already wet, I went into a small stream (this path was well above the river itself) and found a Northern Dusky, or a Dookie as we lovingly call them.

When it came time to gather it in a dish for the others to see, I was once again shown who was boss.

Another brilliant Eft.


Back to the water, I saw another Dookie.


While I was photographing that, Andrea spied the first Two-lined Salamander under some bark.


Our trail came to the stream. It was get wet or turn back time. Intrepid naturalists that we are (or senseless hikers... you decide), we carried on.


As we forged on, the trail brought us past a gorgeous boggy pond area. Our amazing coordinator Meredith said she'd chosen this stretch of the river for our group partly because of this spot. It was a shallow pond with plenty of sticks and cover for water critters.


We noticed tadpoles and adult Red-spotted Newts right away. It was nice to be able to compare the final-stage newt to the Efts we'd been seeing.


I think these are first-year Bullfrog tadpoles.



We looked closely for Water Snakes... the habitat looked perfect, but there were none braving the cool morning. Further up the trail, we found a section that had been cut back, providing lots of potential hiding spots for animals.


Andrea first found an Eft.


As she was photographing that, a small in-the-blue Garter slithered into frame. We caught it and posed it against the red of Lee's sleeve for a striking shot.


Big rock... big Redback.


We got to our turn-around point and took a break, talking and watching this beautiful waterfall.


We revisited some of our favorite spots on the way back, encountering the occasional Eft.


Lee found this spider, the ID of which I'm still working on. (Not my strong suit.)


The Rusty Tricycle Tree was in bloom.


As we approached a puddle where a Green Frog had bested me on the way in, we all slowed down and took in this magnificent sight.

A double dose of Green.

We went back to the museum for all of the groups to report their findings and share stories (and delicious snacks). Everyone had a lovely morning and early afternoon. It really is such an honor to be a part of this event. My hat is off to Meredith and the crew who do a huge amount of work putting this thing together. My biggest thanks also to Susan and Lee for being such charming people and wonderful teachers. Andrea and I always leave this even with a head full of new knowledge.

After we left, we decided that we still had a little steam in our engines (a train metaphor seems needed) so we decided to stop and poke around some of the places we'd driven past for a quick peek. The first spot, just a small patch of grassy area next to the river, got us a plump Wood Frog.


This Peridea angulosa (thanks again, Teá!) tried to hitch a ride home on my trousers.


Sadly, it was getting dark quicker than we'd have liked. We stopped at one more spot on the way home and were greeted by this...


We took the trail in and it was gorgeous. Mossy woodlands with the river chugging through it.



In one clear section with plenty of logs in it, we flipped a snoozing Garter. Pretty olive coloring.


And a bright Redback.


I was anxious to get into the water, even though I'd changed into dry shoes. So I carefully searched the edges for suitable rocks to look under. Almost every one had a beautiful Two-line under it.


I'd really expected to see more Two-lines on the Blitz earlier. I guess they were all here.

Dooks were all about, too. Check out some of the coloring on these guys. Almost like Dook/ Two-line hybrids (though I'm pretty sure such a thing doesn't and can't exist).



So I took pictures of beautiful Duskies and Two-lines while Andrea took pictures of the beautiful river. (She is far more sensible than I.)






I ended the trip with the most beautiful sight of all.


So that was our day in Franklin County. It was long, fun and very rewarding. We look forward to next year's Blitz. We'll be thrilled to join in again if they want us.

We got home in a reasonable amount of time and passed out. We didn't even go out Sunday. (Still cold... is the year ending so soon?)