Plymouth Rocks! 6-6-2020

We spend a lot of our time pretty confused these days. I can't ever remember what the weather is going to be or if we're supposed to be doing something. That said, we found ourselves on Saturday morn with a hot sunny day ahead of us. The world was our oyster. Being turtle nesting season, we wanted to hit a turtle-filled place. Since we're also still looking for some First-of-Year species, we decided on a place that has plenty of those and plenty of turtles. Onward to Plymouth County.

Due to bad planning, we got there a little later than would have been perfect but late morning was better than not at all. Our first animal was a shiny, sleeping Ringneck.


Right after that, we got one of those FOYs... our First-of-Year Fowler's Toad!


Having finally broken the Fowleri seal, we saw dozens more, including these two.


With the amount of small toads we saw, we felt pretty good about encountering our first Hognose of the year, but we never did.

It was hot and sticky so this Redback was a bit of a surprise.


We got down to our favorite vernal pool and could hear plenty of frogs, both Green and Bull, but never laid our eyes on one. Still, the denizens of the pool are very cool. This Diving Bell Spider (thank you, Dr. Rendevil!) was walking along the algae, then on the water's surface.


Ambystoma larvae were hiding under the algae.

Yes, this vernal pool is the one that inspired my death-by-Spotted Salamander story.

Heading back to the car from this first stop, we can get a glimpse of a pond through someone's back yard. What I wouldn't give to look out of my dining room window and see this sight...

That's four Plymouth Redbellies and three Painters.

Next stop, the bog. It wasn't super busy in there, but eventually, we started seeing some frogs. This stunning Green was the first.


Just as green and no less beautiful were these Bullfrogs.


^^ Y'got a lil something on your nose!


Andrea sat down for a nice foot-soak. It had become pretty darn hot.


Before she sat down, we saw a single Painted Turtle out on a distant rock. While she rested, I kept looking over at the rock and seeing it grow. By the time we moved on, it looked like this.


En route to the next spot, we saw a small Painter in the road. Andrea went out and told it that was a bad move.

At the next spot, I was checking all of the trees for sleeping Gray Tree Frogs, another 2020 need-it. One tipping tree had a beautiful split right down the center; perfect for a daytime rest spot for a Gray. Hey, wait... this isn't a Gray!

This large American Toad backed up and slid down the hollow center.

An Assassin Bug tried to assassinate Andrea.


This turtle stack is very interesting to us... we had never seen a Redbelly in this body of water before. This guy, surrounded by seven Painters, is our first.


The introvert Painter.


We were on our historically best Hognose trail and decided to explore a "new" path, one we hadn't explored in years. It took a lot out of us, but we did find a hidden pond with a secret stack of Painted Turtles.


But we were running out of steam pretty quickly by now. 99% humidity, hot heat and incoming thunderstorms were wearing us down. We stopped for a couple more Painters before hitting the car.



Before the deluge, we swung by a sure-fire Redbelly spot to see if anyone was visible with the storm rapidly moving in. This old-timer didn't care.


These two were bobbing around awaiting the thunder and lightning show.


That's eight Plymouth Redbellies on the day. That might be our record.

This distant stack of Painters was our last sight before the rain started.


We'd heard Grays starting to call when the sky got dark and were hoping that when the rain was falling, some would start hopping into the road but we cruised for 45 minutes and never saw one. We heard hundreds, though. They were going to stay put until night fell. We'll get them soon.

That was our Saturday. I hope yours was as nice.