On the way, at a rest stop, we actually had a wonderful surprise... we ran into the son we never wanted! I hadn't seen him for a few years and it did my heart a lot of good. He was stopping there for a "rest" with his better half... great timing. Thank you, Gibson, for a perfectly timed alarm.
We got there a little after 11:00 AM, which was late but what are you going to do? Worth it. Suiting up and spraying down, I realized that my backpack had been stolen when my car was broken into the other night. And here I thought they'd just taken my aspirin. Hey, you can't get blood from a stone but I've had that pack for decades. That one hurt. I had to carry around a bag.
Tiny toad season was in full bloom here. They were all over, even on the first path leading in.
Andrea spotted (hah!) a dark Pickerel near the water.
Up at the picnic table graveyard, I flipped a table-top that I'd laid in place on our last visit here and it paid off with a small in-the-blue Garter.
I saw a larger Garter elsewhere in the graveyard and it went under a board. Upon flipping the board, there was no Garter. What the...?
Moving on, Andrea found a full-sized Fowler's.
The same path had an eager Garter. With all of the tiny toads (likely all Fowler's... Americans are rare at this spot), I'm not surprised to see this.
Another Fowler's, covered in web.
Now, back when we were first coming here, before it opened back up for human camping and habitat destruction, we would see toads with solid black eyes. They were often back bodied with translucent stomachs. Weird little genetic trait. A few bigger ones, but usually tiny to small specimens. The last record I have of seeing one is August, 2016. (Why do you think I keep this dumb blog?)
Imagine my elation when this little bugger hopped into my path.
We saw two more specimens after this guy. It's good to know that this trait is still running through this population.
We got to a spot where we could sneak a peek into one of the five ponds here. Painted Turtles were plentiful.
We got up to the campsites and hurried through. Screaming kids, frustrated parents, radios, bullshit... The shittiness was broken up by this Grey Squirrel who had grabbed a S'more out of a firepit and was enjoying a sweet snack.
We got up to the middle pond. Humans were swimming and carousing. One good note I made... I didn't see any dead fish around the edges. Usually, that's another thing to piss me off. We made our way around the pond (after taking a close look for Water Snakes and Musk Turtles) and a dark brown mustelid was seen poking around the rocks. Not a Ermine like we saw last month... bigger, darker and no white belly. It was a Mink this time. But I couldn't get a decent shot. I had one chance and it took a different route. This is the best I could do:
Cute, isn't it?😖
No Water Snakes around but we had some more Painter sightings. This first shot is as seen... perfectly framed, no editing needed. Hey- it matters to ME!
I realized that this park reminds me of two very important things... how much I love nature and how much I despise being around humans. There was one spot that I wanted to skip but Andrea suggested we take a sit-down for a few minutes and there are picnic table there for such things. As usual, she was right. There was a free table in the shade next to the pond and there were small Bullfrogs in the edge water.
A face-off!
We were low on liquids on the walk back to the car so, other than looking for Ringnecks under bark (which had been futile all day), we made pretty good time heading out.
Of course, we took one more peek at the picnic table graveyard before we left! It had been over four hours so who knows? This massive Pickerel jumped into my sights right away!
It was about 4" from tip of nose to butt. Pretty huge for a Pickerel!
The Garter that had disappeared earlier? Got him! Right where he should have been earlier.
Under the tabletop that had the in-the-blue little Garter in the morning, there was an adult that looked to be full of Tiny Toads.
Or maybe baby Garters.
I just had to look under some broken-up blacktop in the graveyard. A smaller but also full Garter was under one piece.
And another piece had, finally, a wee Ringneck.
That is why we always check the picnic table graveyard on the way out.
While seeing Matt made it so we really didn't need to see any critters and we'd still have a good day, we did see some critters so we went home pretty happy. It's funny how this place has been destroyed by humanity and "upgrades" made for humans, but nature still finds a way to exist. For now. I welcome back the beautiful Black-eyed Toads! 💕
But I liked the place a lot more when it was closed for camping.
But I liked the place a lot more when it was closed for camping.
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