Tried and True and Something New. April 24th, 2021

 A decent day was going to be upon us for a change... low 60s and sunny. We had choices to make and decided to visit "The Tree" in Worcester County for a shot at seeing rare (in Massachusetts) Rat Snakes and a few other possible First of Year species. We hit the road and got there in the late morning with the sun high and warm.

We poked around the parking lot edges before heading to "The Tree", ground zero for Rat Snakes. Having turned up nothing, we headed to our sweet spot. As hoped, but never expected, we saw our first Black Rat Snake of the year, draped along the top of that wonderful tree.

A close-up of ol' dirty face.

As I went around the front of the tree for that second shot, I saw two more Rat Snake noggins pull into a crack that goes up the center of the tree. We tried to wait them out, but they didn't reemerge, so we went on to explore surrounding spots.

We headed down to a flipping area that came up empty, dashing our hopes of Redbellies and Ringnecks, but found a dirty Redback under a rotted log, so all was not lost.

Passing the tree on the way back up, our garland friend was still basking at the top and one of the faces was back, popping out of the crack.

Moving on, we scored another Redback.

We got to a pond area and looked for basking turtles. This little Painter was caught mid-hoist, working his way into the sun.

Further on in that pond, the stacks were more generous.

Andrea spotted a pair of Wood Ducks (#49) in the distance. Here is the male.

This place is pretty small, overall, and we can see what we want to in just a couple of hours. We went back by the tree one last time. The draped guy on top had moved in a bit and was barely visible, but the crack was hoppin'!

That's both of them back out... this guy (head hidden)...

And this guy... head showing in the bottom of the nook.

A crack on the shady side of the tree had one shy Rat in there...

That tree really is a gift. Snake lovers in Massachusetts have a real treasure right there.

So, it was only 2:00 PM and the sun was still high, so Andrea looked on her map-phone-thing and asked if I wanted to explore a nearby place. Yes. Yes I did. So, we made our way through a small town for 15 or 20 minutes and came upon a park with a waterfall and a large pond. There were humans there, but it was big enough and enticing enough for us to take a look.

First, we followed a shady stream that cut through the woods on the opposite side, away from the pond. It was beautiful and we had visions of Dooks and Two-lines, but found nothing in the short time we allowed ourselves. We did see a Green Frog on the way back to the pond, though!

The pond edge was pretty excellent, too. I got my feet wet by retrieving a ball for some kids, so I was ready for wet action. This Bullfrog watched me with zero interest.

I'm calling this guy a Fallfish. He stayed nearby as I photographed him from the shore. If you think it's something else (a Chub of some sort?) please let me know.

A shy little, colorful Green Frog.

The further we got from humans, the more Painted Turtles we saw. In fact, by the far end of the pond, we were seeing them on every possible basking spot.

There was a dam/ waterfall between this pond and the next. We made our way through a wooded trail to explore the other pond. In between, there was a boggy area with some Bullfrogs. The second one here was absolutely massive... one of the largest Bulls we have ever seen.

^^ This guy is a brute!

This side had more Painted fun.

Andrea spied what is actually only our second Garter of April. And a gorgeous one it is!

Since this was our second hike of the day and we were a couple of miles in and we had no idea how far it went, we turned back around here. Fatigue was starting to set in.

We walked the pond edge when we got back near the parking area, intent on a quick look at the other side of the waterfall. Over towards a spillway, this Green Frog was hanging out, alongside a fresh-water snail. The snails are abundant at this location.

I looked down into the spillway, as I am wont to do, and I saw a tiny Painted Turtle down there. He must have floated over the edge when the water was higher. As I was trying to photograph him, I noticed a second one... trying to scale the wall!

We started to think there might be a problem and I thought that, since my feet were wet, I'd try to get to that area for turtle removal.

I walked across the street to see where I could enter. The tunnel was low and I'd have to hunch but I could manage it for 20 or 30 feet.

Damn, that water was ice cold under there! A little over my ankles.

I started scooping up Painters and placing them into Andrea's hat.

I came up with four turtles... 3 Last Year's Model (overwintered?) and one slightly larger one. I handed the hat up the 8-foot wall to Andrea.

Walking back under the road, my feet froze. But it was all worth it. That's the exuberant climbing guy crawling out of the hat, the larger guy on the right.

We took them about 25 or 30 feet away from the spillway and released them. Climber took right off. The other two hatchlings were more shy.

I wonder how many have fallen back down the spillway during the following week.

So, we call that a good day. FOY Rat Snakes and a successful exploration of a new place. And who knows, we like to think we helped those fallen knuckleheads, too.

A Day at the Racers. 4-19-2021

First things first... the weather was pretty shitty all weekend, following the SNOW we got at the end of the week. The sun was straining on Sunday and we were lucky enough to find a Redback in Andrea's Mum's yard, a lovely Lead phase.

So, Monday was Patriot's Day, a Massachusetts holiday. We were both off and the weather was supposed to be sunny and warmer (low 60s). Since we'd only seen one solitary snake in all of April thus far, we went to a place in Plymouth County that we'd either score at or have our hearts broken. Both can happen at any moment.

We got there fairly early and hit a gas-line trail. We saw a bunch of Redbacks right away, not the easiest animal to see in this sandy place, but the temps and moisture was just right and we saw a ton of them, of all colors and sizes.

After this flip, I decided to put a moratorium on them so this blog post won't be all Redbacks!

The vernal at the end was in good shape. We saw some Bullfrog tadpoles present. On the way back, we saw this Painted Turtle getting ready to cross the path. Where he was headed, we had no idea.

Our next stop was the bog and right away, we saw that it was full of frogs. Plenty of Bullfrogs...

Looks like some Spotted Salamanders have been here, too.

Another little Bull.

Plenty of Green Frogs were about as well.

Ah, sweet, sweet verdancy!

A couple more Bullfrogs.

It is great to have the frogs back!

But where are the snakes? Even with great conditions, we've been striking out. We went on the the next stop.

On the drive in, we'd seen dozens of turtles basking but since arriving, it had clouded up a little and we hadn't seen many. This pond had a few Painters up still, however.

This guy gave no shits about a Black Duck being all up in his grille.

We debated walking through an open field. We'd seen a Ribbon in it before, so we headed in. Right away, we were thankful because we saw our first Black Racer on the year!

We were able to catch him for closer inspection.

We set him free and watched him scurry off until we lost sight of him. Continuing on, right around where we lost sight of him, Andrea saw another Racer take off. The same guy? We don't know. But Andrea made a very good point. It's their breeding season and there could well be horny Racers all over this field! Sure enough, we next encountered this massive one... about a 5 footer.

It doesn't matter how big they are or what their reputation is... they're still super derpy-looking. Check out this one's chin freckles!

Now this was more like it!

We added another Racer to our count...

This one had a Kirk Douglas thing goin' on... not the abusing Natalie Wood thing, the chin cleft.

Heading back to the main trail, we saw the ground rumbling... an American Toad was nestling in to the soft earth.

Back out at the pond, Painter Action had accelerated. I took this shot through the trees and thought there were two turtles. Upon uploading it, I see eight in the picture! Five noggins in the water.

We took a side-trail to check out another field to see if any more Racers were about. We saw another nestled American Toad just off the path.

The field was snake-free and we decided to not go up the main path any further. As the year is still young, we're still getting our bodies used to multi-mile hikes and, let's face it... we were gassed. But turning back turned out to be OK because we saw a Ribbon slither into the brush on the way back to the car. This was the best I could do:

Well, I hate to pick up everything I see, but this derpy face was worth it.

And that's that. We did hit another pond area but there were too many humans about for there to be any animals. We did check the tarp that had a stash of baby Snappers under it last Fall. They were long gone. Hopefully, they weren't eaten and we'll photograph them in the future.