Our friend Justin, who lives in Georgia, contacted us earlier in the year and said that he would be at a conference in Boston, our home town, in August. He wanted to meet up and bring along some other avid fans of nature and asked where would be a good place. We decided way back then (it was late May) that the best place would be our favorite pond in Norfolk County! Luckily, nothing came up that would cancel our plans and Sunday, August 20th rolled around and we headed for the meet-up, happy that we'd saved this spot for this day. We'd last seen Justin in person 8 years ago, in Arizona.
Twenty people showed up in the parking lot at 7:30 AM. We all got our bearings, Andrea and I said what we could see at this place and we all got on our way. Being such a large group, and some folks weren't going to do the whole hike, we started on the "dam side", going in the opposite direction that Andrea and I usually go. As soon as we hit the water, everybody was in awe of the beautiful habitat. My first picture was of a Bullfrog way out in the lily pads. Oddly enough, it was the only Bull on the day!
Justin had personally scoped out the place the day before and knew what to expect. Being so early, no turtles were seen on the way through but Justin led everyone to some early morning Northern Water Snakes.
This is a trio of Nerodia, basking in the morning sun.
Now, before you start thinking that we're just seeing common stuff, dear treasure herper, many of the people on the hike were from other areas, even Australia and Germany, and these would be lifers.
A chubby American Toad was the next sight.
Andrea somehow spied this big and beautiful Katydid.
The recent rain worked to our advantage. A puddle at the bottom of an uprooted tree had a few Green Frogs in it.
We all saw a Pickerel Frog that was bounding from the path. One gent from Oregon, Paul, had photographed one earlier, too.
We hadn't gotten too far but since we were being so thorough, we'd only made it to the spot where Andrea and I usually begin. We lost more than half of our crew at this point as the time constraint made them unable to continue on. We lost a lot of very nice people, and the rest of us continued on.
Unfortunately, we'd lost our companion from Australia. Justin had tried very hard to get a salamander for her as no cuadates are found in Australia. Justin and I had earlier flipped a Redback but, just like the day before for Andrea and me, it disappeared unphotographed. Not long after the crew turned back, we uncovered a Northern Two-lined Salamander.
The Crazy Worm next to it was one of hundreds seen on the day. I'm hoping their abundance is not related to the rarity of salamanders seen recently. More data needs to be collected.
Another little pool gave us another brilliantly posing Green Frog.
We'd hit a bit of a dry spell. Unfortunately, a DOR Ringneck was seen. Since the group had thinned out, Andrea and I decided to swing by "the dock" area that I would have been uncomfortable taking
too many people through. This got us our first Garter Snake of the day.
Back on the trail, this little Pickerel was hiding, but not
too well.
We decided again that the "hobo camp" would be OK with the lesser amount of hikers. We went up but struck out. On the way down, however, Paul had spied a Wood Frog, not exactly the kind of frog we'd expected to see on such a hot day in the woods.
Here is Justin getting RIGHT DOWN IN THE ACTION with the Wood Frog! I love this shot!
Right around here, Justin and Paul took a hike up a hill that looked promising for all kinds of things, including Milks. They found a metamorph Spotted Salamander! I didn't go up so I missed out on that one. We lost another hiker or two in their absence. It was getting pretty hot by then.
One more big, beautiful American Toad.
We had soon gone the entire loop and more hikers called it a day. The few, the proud, the heat-stroked... we decided to check back on the dam to see if any turtles had come up in the intervening hours since we'd last looked. Indeed, if you looked close enough, you'd see some small Painted Turtles were catching some sun.
Paul, who had spotted (heh heh) most of the turtles pointed out another, and it was our target for the day... Spotted Turtle!
He was pretty far out there and I was struggling to get a clear shot. As I did so, most of the rest of the group returned to their cars. I stayed there with Karina, who is from Germany and really wanted to get a shot of a turtle, but this one was too far out for her phone.
The two of us walked on to meet up with Justin and Andrea, who had gone ahead. Walking along, her arm went out to stop me and she made an exclamation sound! The international sign for "DON'T MOVE!" A beautiful Spotted Turtle had just crawled up on a rock right next to us to pose for a photo.
What a treat that was. It then slipped back into the water, leaving us with a treasured moment.
A few more Spotted Turtles were seen along the edges, too.
We caught up to Justin and Andrea and Paul. Andrea pointed out a few Water Snakes. Here is one deep in the bushes. She was massive, still holding on to her babies in her belly.
Andrea and I were walking along and had the privilege of watching a Water Snake just being a Water Snake... swimming along, poking around for a snack.
One more Painter for the road...
Only five of us remained. Justin, Paul, Karina, Andrea and me. Before heading to the car, we saw one last Garter foraging near the end of the dam. Just as I clicked the photo, the sun shone on it and made this last picture a great one.
The five of us went out and had some food and thought back on what a great day it was. Eleven overall species (12 if you count the flattened Ringer), a lot of hard work and truly wonderful people to spend some time with. We're in the beginning stages of planning a trip down to meet up with Justin on his home turf. Andrea and I have never gone on nature walks in Georgia... it will be thrilling and oh, so very different!
Thank you, Justin, for including us and showing everyone a great time!
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