We'd been having a bit of a heat wave here in November. Not too hot but into the 70s for a few days in a row. Luckily, that included the weekend. For Saturday, I was thinking of a snake place in Essex County but Andrea suggested a Plymouth County pond that we'd said we were done with for the year. The thought of pond turtles proved irresistible and I agreed... let's check it out.
We got a late start and I was having a meltdown in traffic getting out of town but we made it early afternoon and hurried along, knowing our window of opportunity was small. Having been stuck in traffic so long, our first stop in the refuge was the woods. While there, I flipped a nice Redback to start things off.
We knew we weren't going to see a ton of things but we kept our eyes open as we enjoyed a walk in the 72° November sun. We spied a Spotted Turtle basking on the edge of a bog.
Painted Turtles were seen through the brush but they slipped in before I could get a shot. I finally got a couple of OK pictures.
I actually like that second one quite a bit... getting ready to climb back up after sliding in.
We did
not expect to see any frogs so the sight of this Green Frog was quite a bonus.
We'd been warned ahead of time that there were some Coots there. I always like seeing these guys. Didn't need one on the year (it was #11, seen on January 16th!) but I took a photo anyway.
There weren't many Painters up by this time. This guy crawled up for a bask while we were sitting at our turn-around point.
Walking along the big pond path, we saw this Euro Mantis... he asked me to put up my dukes!
Knowing it's the end of the line, we know this could be our last day for turtles. Freshwater, non cold-stunned turtles anyway. (Last year, our last native pond turtles were photographed on October 24th.) So getting a sight of our third November turtle species was pretty exciting... a Red-belly was basking way out in the pond.
These Painters will likely be our last ones on the year.
Almost at the end of the hike, we got to a stone wall that I have flipped a dozen times and have never seen a snake, or even a skin at. Well, I flipped a shard of Deke skin this time, so we got all excited for what the next year might bring. Then, I flipped a large rock that I can't believe I hadn't tried before... and got quite a shock!
That's a whole lot of empty Racer eggs... and a wee DeKay's right in front of them!
The next rock had 3 Dekes under it. They shot off into those little holes right after I got this photo.
One more for the road.
Obviously, we were pretty happy with that hike. Six species in November? Three turtle species? Not a bad day.
The next day, we stayed local and went to the closest Norfolk County place that we have. It has sucked for the most part this year, but we figured the sunny Alley should have some garland laying out. We were very wrong. It was beautiful and sunny and in the 70s, but we saw nothing on our 5 mile hike except for a pair of flipped Redbacks, and they were at about the mile mark.
We headed home, a little disappointed but what the heck... two Redbacks is way better than nothing. We decided to pull in and look at the local dens before calling it a day.
We parked back in the cemetery, nearer the dens. It paid off immediately when we saw this Water Snake resting in the Valley.
Right near that one, this gorgeous, perfect 3 foot plus lady was stretched out.
Down at the dribble that cuts through the Valley, I saw a Nerodia head pull into the tree roots. Hadn't seen one using that hole in a few years. Around the trunk was this smiling Garter.
I'd noticed this Water Snake peering out through a hole in the leaves from the side but when I got around to the front of him, the humor really set in.
One more look at that big gal.
A nice Leadback that we flipped.
Last sight... a Garter that was over near a known entrance hole.
So, that was our first weekend in November. It was better than all of August. Even the losers get lucky sometimes.
