JULY 20, 2019 AD: BEFORE THE FALL

It was going to be hot, hot, hot so we went west, young man. West to Berkshire County and the cold water of the Westfield River, to my favorite place in the state of Massachusetts. 95-100° in town means roughly 85° there, and that cool, cool water. Cool, man. We got there in the late morning.

Right off the bat, while looking for Wood Frogs, I found some unexpected Redbacks... here is one.

We don't expect to see many of these in this heat but there were a couple up.

We peeked into the river at a new spot and were immediately rewarded with some toad-poles. Some were almost ready to emerge.


Then, our favorite... a Dookie.


We went terrestrial for a while, looking along the edges of the woods and flipping some logs. We found this Dook a good 30 yards from the water, looking all redbacked and stub-tailed. Gorgeous color.


We got to the water and noticed some yahoos had inflicted their "art" on this salamander-heavy river. It was all returned to the water where it belongs.

With so much life under these rocks, it's a shame that "artists" have to use the animal's homes to "create". I mean... put it back as found. My lazy ass can manage to return a rock or log to the exact place it was after taking a peek. It ain't that rough.

The tadpoles were plentiful, mostly toads, I should think.


This big guy is most likely a Green Frog tadpole. He swam up to inspect my shoe.


This stretch of river is brimming with salamanders, including Duskies, Two-lines and Springs. Here is another Dook.


I was hell-bent on being Andrea's hero and spotting our first Massachusetts Spring of the year and was well ahead of her. But she called me back for this gorgeous turmeric colored American Toad.


Yes, we were cooling off. Hubba hubba!❤


I finally got a Two-lined to sit still long enough for a glamour shot. A really nice one, too.


It appears that the Two-lined seal had been broken.


A lovely Desmog, wallowing in the mud.


They used to be easier to find but this spot has been very good to us over the years with erithrystic Redback Salamanders, which is to say, predominantly red ones... not just the backs. It was a wonderful surprise and a gift to see this guy under a log along the side of the river. A spectacular example of the color morph.


Andrea made her way across the water to see the salamander. And fell.


Youch. We decided to make our way back from there, still hoping for a Spring. Andrea found this pretty larval Two-line along the edge.


This Pickerel made a majestic leap of faith from the land to this rock, then to the water. I was far too slow to get a clear shot but this frog impressed me. I gave him a 9.9.


Andrea wisely stayed up on land while I stayed in the river's edge. She flipped a gorgeous Two-line up there.


I finally scored our Spring, a small larvae.


A family had come to cool off in the river and Andrea stayed to talk with them for a while as I looked around further away. The kids had nets so I didn't tell them that I saw some Tiny Toads.



This guy will be on land in no time flat.


I found a seat on a fall and sat there, happily watching this Green Frog and the toadpoles enjoying a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon. I started thinking about what flavor ice cream I wanted to get.

Andrea caught up to me and we made our way back to the car, she on land and me in the water. I thought that if any Garters were around, they'd be nosing around the water, especially with all of those tadpoles.

Then, I slipped on a rock, instinctively protected my camera and put my arm down behind me and snapped my radius and ulna in half and shrieked as my forearm flopped like a second wrist. I eventually got to my feet. (Andrea had made her way down to grab my stuff but I wouldn't let her touch me.) Refusing to look at my arm, I made it up the river bank and to the car. We drove 13 miles to the hospital in Pittsfield, MA and they took good care of me.

Wednesday, July 24th, 4 days later, I had the arm surgically put back together... a long pin, and a plate. I'm healing rapidly, though the band had to cancel 3 gigs and I'm pissed about that. But life goes on, PT hurts and I learned a few lessons. Oh, and the $$ for the new vehicle is back down to zero.

Oh, well. Live and learn.

Heat is Hot, Water is Not. July 13th and 14th, 2019

We wanted to look for animals and we wanted to look for junk. Why not do both? The Brimfield Antique show had been going on all week and now that the weekend was upon us, we thought we'd visit and go treasure hunting. But we wanted to hunt the real treasures first, so we headed out as early as possible to hit a park before hitting the show. We chose our Black Rat place in Worcester County, though we saw no Black Rats.

We didn't get there super early due to traffic and general laziness and it was plenty toasty by the time we arrived. Our first sighting was a Ringneck that we flipped in a shady spot.


This same area had a two-faced Black-eyed Susan. Cool.


Next up was a Garter Snake hiding in the grass, also in the shade. We were noticing a trend.


Nearby was a tricky Pickerel. Watch out for that Garter, bruh!


We headed to "Beaver Pond Road" to check out the water action. This Painter had recently hauled up.


This Bullfrog was seen from very far away. He was big. I love the expectant look on his face.


Another big Bullfrog pickle.


Some more Painters. Nobody was staying out of the water for long.



Even Andrea couldn't stay out for long.

Basking.


She had a visitor.


Our last sight before heading to Brimfield was this grumpy American Toad. He just wanted to rest under the cool rock we'd flipped.


Brimfield was fun... we ate a lot of junk and found some good stuff... clothes and paper vapor mostly.

The next morning, we wanted to beat the again. Our goal was, believe it or not, to pick black raspberries. Animals would be fun, too, but wild berries was our goal. A goal that we met as soon as we arrived. We picked a lot. We still have some now, 5 days later.

After stowing the berries in our cooler, we started looking for critters. Before we left the parking lot, we saw a Tiny Toad, most likely American.


Then a Teeny Wood. It was actually as small as the Tiny Toad. Remarkable.


The Garden can be very Gartery but it was pretty hot already. This in-the-blue Garter poked its head out long enough for this sorry photograph but evidently deemed it too hot. (Or too human-filled.)


The river wasn't exactly bursting with turtles but one resilient Painter was up.


We didn't see much for a while until further out on the river, where a pair of distant Painters was up.


We made it to the waterfall, unofficially our mid-way point. We sat and relaxed in the shade. There was a bunch of Black Ducks and Canadian Geese behaving like waterfowl out there and it was fun to watch them. Through my binoculars, I enjoyed this Painted Turtle drama... where three baskers were interrupted by an interloper.


A very enjoyable time spent relaxing and watching.

Heading back, we continued to look around. We flipped a car hood that was laying right in the sun and it was scorching hot. There were some skins under it, but then out of nowhere, a pretty adult Garter went streaking across the space. We caught her for pictures.

^ Those are Andrea's hands. Mine were covered with thick musk and a lot of poop. She destroyed me. I even toothpasted a little poop out of her to help her empty out. I was filthy.

Almost to a spot where we could cool off (and clean up) in the river, a little Garter shot into the brush. It took many many shots and patience on both mine and the snake's part, but I finally captured this beauty on "film".


We took a dip for a while. I washed my pants and hands thoroughly. Then we continued on. Way back towards where we started, we stayed along the river and this pretty Pickerel hopped into the brush. I lay down and got my camera into the brush and got this pic that I'm pretty happy with.

I sat there for a while as Andrea carried on poking around. After just spacing out and watching the water for a while, I peeked in to see if the frog was still in there. It was, and I saw it scritching into position, turning, scritching again and turning again. Then it settled in and relaxed. I'd never seen that before. It was cool.

Heading back, the turtle log was occupied by two fabulous Painted individuals. The second one is molting.



A last ditch effort for squamates in the woods behind the Garden got us a gorgeous adult Woodie.


We went for Mandarin Buffet and decided that we'd carry on a bit more. After eating, we headed over to the old Mill site. It wasn't too crowded but it was hot. Andrea spied this small Water Snake down in the flowing water. I didn't get to see it.


OK, I had one more stop in me, so we drove a few miles to our Musk Turtle spot. There were people fishing but we still dipped in to look around and noodle for Musks. Andrea saw one swim out and I'm pretty sure I poked one way under a rock underwater but we got no evidence on camera. We walked the edges looking for Water Snakes, too. At one point, we started seeing many Tiny Toads, most likely all Fowler's this time.


My back was in pretty sad shape that day but I was determined to find my bride a Musk Turtle. And when all seemed to be at its most bleak, I finally unearthed a wee one (yearling?) on the lake's edge and handed it to Andrea. She put it in her collapsible water dish.

Since it was so hot, we didn't keep it out for very long at all.


We put him down on a rock and like lightning, he bolted back into his cool, safe place on the edge of the lake.

That was our weekend. Hot, sweaty, poopy and fun.