We stepped into a small building that Barn Swallows (#55) have taken over. They objected to our presence.
At the pond, this massive Bullfrog was seen among the lilypads.
There was a pile of sticks next to the trail. I knew if I looked at it long enough, a Garter Snake would appear. And one did.
A beautiful, bronzey Green Frog.
A small vernal pool there had plenty of movement below the surface of the water. Things will be emerging soon. This Bullfrog was keeping guard at the edge.
This Redback was a surprise... they're usually in hiding when the weather is hot.
I think that is the only salamander we have seen all month.
All along the path, if you looked closely, Garters were waking up. Andrea helped the top one wake up a bit.
This Green hopped across the path in front of us and into the brush. Tough shot, but it came out OK.
Most turtle perches were out of view but these two Painters were enjoying what they found. (The little guy is about 3 feet in front of the other one.)
Again, piles of cleared sticks next to the path were golden. It's a good, inconspicuous spot to warm up, so said this in-the-blue Garter.
Also enjoying a warm up was this stunning Ribbon Andrea spotted.
You don't get sauritus much prettier than that!
A Pickerel Frog jumped into the deep grass right in front of me. Mercifully, it didn't hop off as I carefully pulled back the grass and I got a nice photo of it!
Andrea took the high road (trail) in this beautiful, verdant setting.
At the far end of the park, there's a small, hidden pile of rocks where we've seen Milk Snakes in the past so we're always sure to take a look there. No Milks, but there were dozens of Tiny Toads, likely Americans (we've never documented Fowler's here).
That had us watching our step very closely. Which is a good thing, because this juvenile Milk Snake was squiggling through the grass, probably also interested in the toadlets.
We sat for a spell on a bench. We were officially at the half-way point. We watched the birds and relaxed. We saw a Carolina Wren (#57) flitting back and forth to a rock wall below where we sat, and we noticed it had some food.
When we got up, we went o look at the wall and saw the nest that it kept visiting.
We went on and commented on how many Garters we'd seen. For all of the ones we managed photos of, there was another that was too fast and slithered away. Here's another one that we tracked down in the brush.
Answering our question of "Where the Nerodia at?" was this large female stretched out next to the path.
Our tenth species of the day... fourth snake species! Thank you, Mother Nature!
Considering the past few years have been pretty bad for Ribbon Snake sightings (our first and only Ribbon in 2018 was on December 29th), it was with great joy that we saw our second and third Ribbons of the day next!
Back to Painted Turtles... the big,
and the very small.
Sunning behind some rocks, not 10 feet away from the filthy human garbage that was starting to pour into the park, was this pair of digesting Garters.
A pair of humans who didn't suck (a rarity, but there are some) were off next to a stream photographing something. We asked what was up and they generously showed us a Bullfrog that was likely being stalked by a Water Snake. The Bully was inflated to a massive size.
The Nerodia was about 6 feet away, thinking it over.
While we all watched, the snake moved a little closer, up onto a log in the water.
Then the Bull, who frankly looked too big too attempt to eat (though I've seen it happen before) plopped off in an ungainly fashion. I don't know if the snake pursued it further... we had to move on.
We checked a few more faithful areas out before hitting the car, but saw no more animals. In order to avoid the encroaching humanity, we took a different way out. Andrea had noticed a far area that had some rocks and sun and shade and all of the stuff we know snakes would enjoy.
There was a grill out there and I jokingly said something about snakes having a barbecue. Andrea pointed out that I wasn't far off.
There were two Garters, she said. I went closer and saw where the other one had moved to. Tight squeeze.
That was the last thing we photographed, though another Garter or two darted away from us on the way to the car. Not a bad day, and it was barely noon. The heat was on and the human stew was bubbling all around us; a perfect time to go home. But we'd seen 10 species of reptile and amphibian and I'd added 4 birds to the 2020 count. I call that a successful trip.
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