And So Ends August. 8-30 and 8-31-2025

Labor Day weekend and the weather was supposed to be nice... mid-70s and sunny! Having seen a shoestring Garter the previous week, I chose a spot in Bristol County that could be good for both shoestrings and walking pebbles. Of course, that proved a lot harder than expected and, as usual, I failed. But hang on... we did see some stuff.

First up, the picnic table graveyard gave us a small in-the-blue Garter.

The animal of the day was definitely the Fowler's Toad. Here is our first one.

Painted Turtles were grabbing late Summer rays.

A sandy Fowler's.

This was amusing and I wish I'd been filming. I was walking along the edge of a sandpit when all of a sudden, a circle of pine needles flipped it's lid and a chunky Fowler's hopped into the brush. This is the culprit that surprised me.

It was time to put a moratorium of Fowler's but a beach rock revealed about a dozen, including this trio.

We both had (wet) handfuls of toads in order to replace the rock.

A secret Painter. A new spot.

I finally got the camera on a couple of Pickerels.

Our secret Painter spot looked full on most basking platforms. No Red-bellies.

On the way back, we were noting how damn many little Fowler's were hopping around. I noted no Black-eyed specimens. Andrea alerted me to a large Garter than had just slithered into the bushes. I found her and noted that she too had been noticing the toads. I didn't want to handle her because of that but getting a photo was tough. I finally got this shot which is good enough.

We decided to slide over into Plymouth County to the old Mill to see if any Water Snakes or Musk Turtles were around. I did notice a happy coil across the stream, hidden on the other side.

And then I flipped (finally) a shoestring Water Snake.

I just adore brand new Nerodia. He went into the stream and got caught in the current when I released him but I'm sure he caught the grass quickly and hopefully got right back under the same rock.

Not the perfect treasure hunt but a decent day for 6 miles of hiking.

The next day, Sunday, we concentrated on shoestrings and walking pebbles again and went to a spot in Middlesex County where both have been seen in the past. Again, it was in the low 70s and sunny. We got there at about 9:30 and hit the trail. 

We saw nothing until we got the the middle pond area and noticed that they'd done some work on the path and beaver dam area. It worried me but then, what doesn't? We finally saw some frogs, a Bull then a Green.

Painted Turtles. Lots. Everywhere. No Blanding's on the day but so many Painters. Let's start, shall we?

I got a good shot of my #60 bird that I'd gotten a shitty shot of on July 4th (in flight). Here is my revised Belted Kingfisher.

Back to Painted Turtles.

This last chorus line stopped many-a-hiker to take a photo.

These small Golden Shiners were plentiful.

Painter Yoga.

Surprisingly, I flipped a Redback on the way back.

A last stack of Painted Turtles.

Well, that's that. I realize that if you don't like common stuff, especially Painted Turtles, this post must be as dull as dishwater. But I'll tell you, the only thing on Sunday, August 31st that kept me from wanting to open a vein and bleed out and be done with it was watching Painted Turtles bask, swim and climb, enjoying the sight with Andrea. Things are so fucked up right now but watching turtles being turtles puts a lot into perspective, at least for a while.

Party on.

I Hate to be a Cheater, But... 8-27-2025

One good thing about my job of 35 years is that I got to work with my pal Ryan for the last 12 or 15 or so of them. He, like me, is a snake fan and one of the first things we learned about each other is that we like to go out and look for our native snakes. We'd even cut out of work early a couple of times to do so. Now that we're both unemployed, we are still trying to find time to hitch up.

Ryan asked if we'd like to do a Copperhead run in Norfolk County but the only time we'd be able to do it was on a Wednesday while Andrea was at work. With her permission, I accepted the challenge.

We met at noon and headed up the path and eventually got to our spot. High up in the sun, we figured Copperhead Moms would still be baking their (live-born) babies. It wasn't long before Ryan called me  and I ran to see one speeding back under a rock. No decent photos, but it's always exciting to see such a gorgeous animal.

Not too much later, I saw a small Copper curled up next to a rock. It was a very tough shot and I'm not very happy with the ones I got but at least it's something.

We looked around some lower levels for a while to no avail. I was sweating like a pig and had to take a few "whoa- slow down, heart" breaks. We'd hoped to add a Racer to the sights but had no such luck. Eventually, we both started to move back to the sunny top. I was looking over towards where I'd seen the last one when Ryan called that he'd found another. While running towards his voice, I saw this one the way... all flattened for optimum sun catching.

Holy crap! I marked the spot from above with a piece of refuse on top of the rock and sped toward his voice.

It's fair to say that he definitely had the find of the day.

You just don't get many chances to see such perfection.

Back to the one that I'd seen on the way, we saw that she had come out and reinflated.

We were pretty happy with a four snake-sighting day in Massachusetts so we headed back to the path, always keeping our eyes open and staying alert. Back on the path, I rolled a log and there was a very small Marbled Salamander there for some icing on the cake.

Not a bad two and a half hours. I feel bad that Andrea didn't get to see these things but we'll go back in October some time when it's cooler and hope that she too can check Copperheads off of the 2025 list. It's always a treat to be in the field with Ryan and we certainly are happy with our finds.

Anniversary Vacation Days 2 and 3. Aug. 22nd and 23rd 2025

We both woke up tired but we were able to shamble out to the porch to watch birds and have breakfast. I took dozens of hummingbird shots, some were even decent. But we were interested in spending our Big Day out in the woods, for better or worse. It was going to be much warmer this day and had hopes for a good one.

We couldn't find our first spot. Eventually, we saw a gate and a sign for the place so I squished into a bush and we headed in. It was a massive field with gravel around the edges. As soon as we hit the edge grass, we saw plenty of small Pickerel Frogs bounding into the brush. I was trying to photograph one when Andrea found a shoestring Garter!

Here's one of those pesky Pickerels!

I was really lucky to see a tiny Peeper hopping in the grass. He landed on a dandelion leaf, all 3/4" of him, and stayed long enough for me to get a charming shot.

The rest of the field wasn't very productive, a few Pickerels but they were too fast. I got mixed up direction-wise, too. We hit a short wooded path in hopes of seeing the nearby river but it cut off, so we turned back and moved on.

There was a dam nearby so I figured, "why not?" It was very open but I figured Water Snakes might be out and the spillway might have a Snapper. But there wasn't any cold-blooded critters to be seen. I did add Bird #64, a Rough-winged Swallow, who looked at me as I snapped the shot.

Upward and onward... we wanted shady woodland paths and streams. We headed back to another spot in Peru. It looked like it had a slew of well marked paths and even a hand-drawn map free to take. We headed in and it was our cup of tea, for sure. We were greeted by a busy Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillar. No touch 'em.

This Pickerel jumped into our way and it got me for a second... a couple of extra dots and more green than usual. He tried to make me think Leopard but no, he's all Pickerel. A beauty, too.

We found some streams leading from a very picturesque pond. There were Dookies present! 

I made a mad (back-wrenching) search for Springs, as well, because the water seemed to be good enough for them but no...

I was wondering why we were seeing plenty of Dookies but no Two-Lines. Of course, right then I saw one or two but they were far to quick for me! Happily, back up on the trail, I flipped a log and had not only a Redback, but our first Two-line of the weekend.

Up next to the pond, we flipped a tiny Two-line. Check out his markings! Gorgeous!

This Redback was huge but I was too dumb to put in anything for a size reference.

Double Dookie Display.

The hand-drawn map was helpful but the distances were a bit wonky. We made decisions that turned out to be longer than expected and many rests were needed. We were on the red-blaze path and there was a fallen tree. Looks like a bear took exception to the red paint on the bark!

This had been a great place but we'd really gotten a bit gassed on the many winding trails so we headed to Pittsfield for an Anniversary Buffet. Yum. But, of course, we'd have to walk off the meal. We'd not seen any turtles yet that day so we went to a place near where we were that we knew was turtle-centric. Upon getting to the pond, we got to watch Painted Turtles playing, basking and exploring.

We explored a bit more but inevitably went back to watch the Painters. But we were toast so we headed back to "our" place. We'd hoped to have enough gas to take the kayaks out but wound up sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs watching birds bugs and bunnies.

I finally got my #66 Ruby-throated Hummingbird shot. Not as sharp as I'd like but not horrible. The tongue is out.

That night, it was much easier to sleep. 

The next morning, we had breakfast on the porch again, enjoying the birds and bugs. Then we went down to the dock and sat there watching the water for an hour. It's not too bad to wake up and have this for your view.

Bluegills kept coming up to see if we had any treats. We did not.

We had tiny Orb-weaver Spiders in the potted plants in front of us and they were entertaining us a lot.

We checked out and hit the road, not really sure what we were going to do. My only need-it was the Spring Salamander place that we hadn't been back to since I broke my arm there on July 13th, 2019. 

Our first stop was a town fair that the Berkshire County Turtle Rescue was going to be at and we wanted to show them some support. They had some real cuties on display.

We next went to a place we'd stumbled on last year with a beautiful waterfall. It was even more beautiful this year because there were almost NO humans there.

A Redback greeted us after we made our way through to a private area.

The scenery was beautiful.

Two-lines? Present!

We cooled off a bit and then headed to our Spring spot for some much belated Spring searching. The road signs looked different and as we approached the area we noticed cars. Hmmm... they'd opened the gate and some people had parked there. As we pulled in, we saw that a lot of people were there. Dozens and dozens. Human garbage. There was even a dude laying down where I always found erythristic Redbacks. The place was absolutely RUINED. I pulled out and drove upstream for a mile or so until I found a quiet place to park. The river was a bit of a hike from the road but it was quiet and shaded and it might have been my only chance for a Spring. I had a Pickerel greet me on the way down to the water.

I made it down and it looked as good as it would get.

I flipped and searched until I just couldn't do it anymore. I was at least rewarded with a 4 inch Dook that was quite lovable.

That was it for the weekend. I can't put into words how heartbroken and disappointed I am that this pristine, gorgeous place was opened back up for humans to destroy. I doubt Springs will bother with that river anymore. Surely human trash, suntan oil and sludge will wipe out the population. It devastated me. And the traffic stupidity tested me on the way home. (I failed) 

I'm not going to let the bad stuff wipe out the great time we had that weekend. We saw 12 species of reptile and amphibian, added 3 birds to the year and best of all, spent time together. 22 years! I hit the lottery for sure.