Starting Vacation with a Fang. July 1st and 2nd.

We're both on Vacation! Yeah, baby! On Monday, July 1st, we slept in and it was great. The weather was iffy, so we didn't plan anything. But by early afternoon, we realized we had a window of a couple of hours before rains came. We decided between a walk in Norfolk County where we could see Racers, Garters and there's always the possibility of Copperheads. Or, take a walk around our favorite pond in the same county. We chose the flatter of the two walks, the former.

We got there 1:00 PMish and walked the trail, flipping moist logs and hoping for salamanders but they have disappeared for the time being. We weren't seeing a thing, but the weather was nice and we were together (not at work) and all was well. A good quarter mile before I would have thought we were in Copperhead range, Andrea spied this next to the path.

Needless to say, we were shocked and thrilled... and careful! He took off into the brush, pissed that we had disturbed his slumber.

We went on, continuing to look for Racers or more Coppers, but it was not to be. I did go up the hill a bit, but that was to "look for Wood Frogs" very carefully.

Hey, if you're only going to see one animal, it might as well be an absolutely gorgeous, endangered specimen. First of Year, by the way. Super lucky sighting.

The next day was a Tuesday and we got up at the ass-crack of dawn to drive out to Plymouth to look for Racers at a spot that our friend Sārah had recently showed us. All was good, we got there by 8 AM, but there was a guy mowing near where we wanted to go in. We talked to him, he tried to discourage us from going in, but told us of wondrous trails within the park area. He was cool and nice and really loved talking. We got the history of the place and the whole layout.

But it took a while. We did go in and walk through the woods and it was lovely, but I felt I was wasting time. We didn't actually get to the junk-flipping spot until after 9AM when we snuck back in behind the guy. And by that time, everything had warmed up. Our only flip was a beautiful, stripeless Garter that was still snoozing.

A young Tree Swallow peeked out at us.

Out in front of the area, in a bog, some small Painters were enjoying the morning sun. We heard big Bulls calling. These wee guys had best be alert.

From there, we went up a few hundred yards to our Musk Turtle place. There was an adult that had climbed a stick to poke his face out of the water and into the air.

This smaller one (about quarter-sized) had similarly climbed a reed.

It was still pretty early, so we headed over to Bristol County to a flipping area, still hoping for a snake or two. Some Painted Turtles were visible through the trees above the pond.

We could all learn a little something from this little guy with the deformed shell. He is obviously sporting a malformed shell, but look at how damn fabulous he is! Happy as a pointy little clam.

Heading over to the debris-flipping area, a few plump Fowler's Toads were crossing the path.

The flipping area yielded no snakes but tiny toads were everywhere! Beautiful!

From there, we went for lunch and then to yet another Bristol County favorite spot to look at the Fragrance Garden. Nuthin' snake-wise, but we saw this Bee-mimic Robberfly which was very cool.

That's our Monday and Tuesday. Nothing planned today (Wednesday) but you never know what might happen!