2022 Year End Crap Up.

Not much happening in December. I hate Massachusetts. We did get the call for beach duty on December 9th. It was windy as a mofo and we were sure we'd rescue a turtle or two.

Well, none at the first one. Maybe the second one, where when we pulled in somebody said they'd seen three without trying. Andrea braved the tide...

No turtles.

I did photograph a bunch of Dunlins and noticed a Sanderling in there, making my bird count 91.

Groovy. I'm not sure we'll sign up again next year. This is the third highest stranding count ever, but we've contributed zero. We're obviously not needed.

A couple days after Christmas (Dec. 27th, a Tuesday), Andrea heard some fancy birds had been seen at a nearby place. It was cold as fuck but we went out anyway. I have to admit, ice does some pretty cool stuff.

Ice snakes...

While we didn't see the Horned Larks or Snow Buntings that were reported, I did add a Savannah Sparrow to the count, making my year end on 92. Not horrible. Thank you, Florida.

Yesterday (the 30th) it was in the 50s and partly sunny so we hit the dens. Obviously, the warmth hadn't yet reached the frost line, but we did flip a rock and see a December Redback.

So, that's 2022. A real shitty year. It started out OK but then we had the heatwaves, the drought, high gas prices, we both had Covid (and still feel effects) and just started to not give a shit about anything anymore. We missed many species that we usually get.

Lowlights... No Gray Tree Frogs (too lazy to drive to Plymouth in the rain), and only one Peeper photographed. No Northern Leopard Frogs. No Spadefoots. No Spring Sals, No Jeffs, No Mudpuppies, one 4-Toed, one Blue-Spotted, one Marbled, no Hognoses, no Copperheads, and then there was that Green Snake day in September. Also, no Terrapins, no Box Turtles and no Wood Turtles.

We did get to the Glades, though, in March and that was a nice trip. Lifer Pigmy and Amevia. And our weekend in the Berkshires was nice, though it wasn't a huge animal trip.

But our sickness, indifference and the things mentioned above made this a shit year in the field for us. Hopefully, we'll be back on track come the Spring. 

The End of November. Redbacks and the Lucky 13.

Thanksgiving Day was fairly nice, if pretty cold. Since it was sunny, we took a walk around our local den spot. You never know.

It was windy and we figured snakes wouldn't be out. Still, I flipped a little and came up with 4 Redbacks. The first one is just 3/4 of a Redback, I guess.
    

That's it.

On Nov. 27th, a Sunday, our friend Bob was coming up to walk the beaches for turtles. We were excited to join him, except we got called to drive turtles that morning. It sucks that we didn't get to join him, but he found a Kemp's and a Green, so it's all good.

Our wall of turtles numbered 13, a mixture of Kemp's Ridleys and Greens. We kept the car at a pretty steady 55° from Wellfleet to Quincy.

It was good to have the car smell like turtles again. Needless to say, we stopped for hot drinks after dropping them off.

And so ended November.