We got there pretty early, by 10:30 AM, I think, and it was overcast and only in the mid-60s. I thought it might be good for flipping but it wasn't, really, until I was going through a piece of tarp and this cool Garter fell out.
Peeking under some bark on a fallen tree, we got out first Redback in about a month, a gorgeous deep burgundy special.
The next flip was a fairly important one in my eyes. Just a plain ol' common Redback, for sure, but he's resting on Crazy Worm soil which we all no is no good for anyone. I usually equate Crazy Worm soil with seeing nothing else but this brave Plethodon was showing me that it can be done.
The tree was snake-free and is even more split than last time. We looked around the obvious Rat Snake places but saw none. Another piece of tarp worked, though. There were two Garters in it... see?
But the left hand one said "nah, I'm out" and I could only secure a shot of the right hand one.
Pickerel Frogs seemed to be the order of the day, indeed the whole weekend. Here are the first two of many Pickerels that we saw.
The sun was making a valiant effort to pop out a little. It didn't warm up much but it was good enough for a trio of Painters to get up.
A dark and chilly Green Frog was resting on a rock, posing nicely.
I found a rock that looked like a Bigfoot print mold and placed a large Pickerel that I'd flipped onto it. My resultant picture is funnier than it would have been had the frog sat still.
Another Painted Trio.
While I was photographing them, Andrea thought I must have been trying to shoot the large Water Snake gal who had just come up to try to warm up. I'm glad she pointed her out!
Right next to her was another!
Walking back to the car, Andrea did her eagle-eye routine and noticed a wee Snapper that must have just emerged into the world. Snaplings make everything great.
Of course, we scoured the area after that while walking to our car. We got ready to go but got talking to our pal Sam there (she who worked on the storm drain dangers). I'd asked if she'd seen many Efts and she had not. We hadn't seen one yet either, but they are common there. I asked about the Rats and if they're likely to abandon the Magic Tree. She mentioned a second Magic Tree that was also splitting but had a bolt through it holding it together. She told us where it was and we heading back in to find it.
It's funny, the tree looks the same as the classic one, only it has a long bolt going through it. No Rats at the moment but we think we know where they might hide on the colder days (like this one). Still, it was great to learn of another tree that holds so many possibilities. Plus, we saw an American Toad up there so it's all worthwhile.
I saw Sam as I was driving out (as Andrea scoured the exit road for possible Snaplings) and she showed me a picture of an Eft she'd just seen on a cross-road up on the hill. She'd seen 7 or 8 or them and helped them cross! Awesome.
So, we hit the road and drove on and got pretty close to New York before we turned off the Mass Pike. We took pretty backroads all over the place before finally getting to where we'd be staying. It was a pretty spot, a big expensive house on a gorgeous placid lake. It didn't take me long to grab a rocker on the porch and watch birds buzzing about. Hummingbirds, in particular, were on my need-it list but I couldn't get a satisfactory shot.
We went into Peru, the next town over, and hit a wildlife preserve to look for streams so we could find a First-of-Year Northern Dusky Salamander (our beloved Dookies) or Spring. It was a nasty dirt road that bopped the car around. After a couple of miles, we finally saw a place we could pull over and look around. It was here that we flipped our first Berkshire County Redback of the trip.
There was a trail leading into the woods and we happily started up the rock-strewn path. Andrea struck gold when an Eft was crossing in front of her.
Hard to believe that this was our First of Year but with the heat and the dryness and the fact that we haven't been getting to good mountainous spots much this year, it makes sense. Damn good to see it.
We encountered a fallen tree that had attracted a whole lot of slugs with some tasty fungus.
Note the small guy above the slug on the left hand side.
There were no good spots to stop the car whenever there was a stream visible but I said fuggit and pulled into some bushes and stumbled down to the water. It wasn't long before I photographed our First of Year Dookie!
They always make me happy and I always remember the son we never wanted saying "I've never heard of anyone targeting Duskys". Since we have to drive at least an hour before we can see them, I consider them Cuadate Gold.
So, that was our first day. We both slept kind of shitty that night but that's the norm for us on vacation. The next day was going to be our actual anniversary and we had a slew of places we were eager to look at in celebration.
To be continued...
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