Hit Me With Your Nature Stick: Three Days in the Mountains July 4,5 and 6.

We couldn't swing anything too fancy this year but Andrea found this charming little house in Hawley, MA that faced a pond and had some promising hiking trails around it and it wasn't back-breakingly expensive. We headed over to the upper-right corner of the state on the morning of July 4th. Our first stop was when we got hungry and we stopped in Shelburne Falls for a bite and some sights. Both food and sights were lovely.

The Falls themselves.

This is a massive pothole caused by glaciers. We eventually figured out how to get over that way.

Once we did, we saw our first critters of the trip... some tiny toads, likely American Toads.

We were closer than we thought to our house for the next two days but went on an excursion on a dirt road to check out a "bog trail". Said trail was closed, but there were plenty of flippin' rocks and I started up. I was surprised to get an in-the-blue Garter right away.

Next flip got us our first erythristic Redback in a while, with a bonus normal Redback.

I've given my theory before, but I'll say it again. Erythristic Redbacks are common in the Western part of Massachusetts because so much of it is montane and efts are abundant. Has this color morph survived (whereas I've never seen a Leadback out there) because of their similar warning color? Food for thought. Or not.

I grabbed a net and got myself a Two-lined Salamander.

Not having seen any salamander for a month or more made all of this quite wonderful.

The most delicate flip ever. We had never seen this before... a whole mess of Two-lined Salamander eggs attached to a rock. These guys are ready to pop. Amazing sight.

The rocks next to the road kept yielding fantastic creatures. I was blown away when we flipped a fat adult Spotted Salamander.

This Peeper, the first in months, hopped up next to me to announce his presence.

From there, it was almost time to check in to our house. We went to inspect the pond beforehand. This is, I believe, a White Admiral, the first I've photographed.

There were a number of Bullfrogs visible on the edges as well.

Some wet boards behind the house made our salamander sightings continue, with a bunch of Redbacks, including an Erythristic.

We had a nice talk with the guy up the road, who actually owns the pond. He was very nice and gave us some tips on places to seek out. We went off in search of one, couldn't find it, then pulled off next to a stream for some Salamandering. First reward, our First of Year Dook!

(We call Northern Dusky Salamanders Dookies... deal with it, OK?)

Two-lines and Dooks were abundant. No Springs at the time.

Silt with eyes!

We got home and had some killer pizza from Country Pie Pizza in Ashfield. Then we went out to watch the pond for an hour or so, until the sun set. Beauty and romance. And a Crow fending off a potential usurper to his rock.

The Bullfrogs were still up and noisy at times.

We sat in this idyllic spot, listen to Ravens calling back and forth in their hilarious voices, hearing the Bulls and the occasional Gray Treefrog. I mean, I could do this every night.

One of the resident Belted Kingfishers was skimming the pond in the fading light.

What a day.

Day Two started out with us going to find some breakfast, settling in at a lovely diner. Filled with grub, we headed to our next spot, just a place we'd passed and thought it looked nice. First sighting of the day was our morning Garter, who appeared to be sleeping off a recent breakfast herself.

A Great Spangled Fritillary landed on a Black-eyed Susan and I just couldn't resist a photo.

We entered the trail and noticed that it was a bit like Mount Toby, another Western MA hike we have done. The path went up an incline and whereas it had rained in the night, there was a small stream running down the rocky pathway. It looked good for Dookies. Our first find was a Red Eft and a Two-line! Double trouble!

This guy I had thought was a Two-line in the wild but upon closer inspection, it is a Dook. Just check out those thicc back legs! Woo!

This Eft was bookin' it across the path.

A couple more Dooks.

Every Redback I'd flipped took off like a bat out of hell so I was fortunate to finally get this dirty fella.

Here's a look at that path, with the lovely Andrea modeling it.

Under the bridge, it looked like prime Spring habitat. I almost pooped when I flipped and had a small flash of red, but it was a large Redback. The only addition I had down there was another Two-line.

We were absolutely soaked. It was 258% humidity and we were working our butts off. I was gasping for air. I had to sit for a while. A trio of hey-bras came by on their motorbikes looking to go up the trail. (These were NOT kids) and I warned them to stay away from rocks because things live under them. I got a few "yessir"s... fuckers better have been careful.

I flipped one more neatly folded Garter before we left.

We checked out some maps and decided on a pond walk at another nearby spot. When we pulled in, a Porcupine was lumbering across the lawn. We watched him go, then watched him munch on some leaves in the brush. Incredibly cute.

We chose a pond walk because we'd hoped to see turtles. There were none and despite hearing a few Bulls and Greens call, we saw no frogs. Still, it was a fun, if very sweaty walk and we saw a few Redbacks and Efts on the way around.

The Erythristic Redback/ Eft comparison is easy to see there.

Andrea finally spied one of those Bullfrogs when we reached the end of the trail.

We then went to scope out a beach because we were so hot and sweaty. We found it and decided to go back to the house and get our suits. Well, the best laid plans. A massive storm came through and we just made it back before it became too crazy. Our plans changed to "relax and read" while the storm raged outside. That worked out quite well as two inches fell in two hours!

Of course, by the time it stopped, dusk was upon us and mosquitoes were savage, so we stayed in, just watching the pond from the front room. The Kingfisher again gave us a nice shot to end the day.

But seriously, I could live with this. Ravens, Gray Treefrogs, Bullfrogs... the nature sounds were amazing as the sun set on our second day.

Day Three started and we had to clean up and be out at 10 AM. No problem there. We had another nice talk with "our" neighbor, watched some birds and then went to say goodbye to both morphs of Redback under the boards.

From there, we went to a bog to walk the boardwalk and look around. Before entering, I flipped a very pissed off stubby snake, our Morning Garter.

Entering the woodland, we realized we'd have to watch our step. There were plenty of Efts out and about. Two, anyway.

Out in the bog, it was simply beautiful. We kept our eyes out for anything that might live there. We heard plenty of birds and Green Frogs. We saw some carnivorous plants, the Purple Pitcher Plant. (Couldn't find any Sundews.)

It was another super hot and sweaty day and we wanted to get to the Norman Rockwell Museum who was having a MAD Magazine exhibit. But we weren't in a huge hurry, affording us to stop off at another waterfall place, Wahconah Falls. It was fairly crowded and despite being in long pants and headed for a museum, I got down into the water anyway.