Hit Me With Your Nature Stick

NEVER SAY DIE!! Nov. 20, 2011

2011-11-29T14:57:00.000-08:00

Still mild as November went on. Mid-60s. Why the hell not hit Allendale?

It was a lovely day for a hike, even though I had a cold and we were a bit tired. But still, a balmy November day held the promise of herps. Well, maybe not... it had been DAMN COLD Friday night. Frost and ice. Still, there might have been someone out and about.

It became clear fairly quickly, however, that despite the lovely weather, most herps had retired for the winter. We enjoyed the fresh air, exercise and the walk, but admittedly, we wanted to see some animals.

We got so desperate, we took a shot of this big Earthworm!

He was pretty impressive.

We were almost done, having walked for over an hour, flipping everything possible and the car was in sight. I flipped a log.

Ooh! Redback! I grabbed him. No, just a worm after all.

No wait! It IS a Redback!!! (I told you I had a cold!)

This one lil fella had forgotten to hibernate, so we happily photographed him and sent him packin' for the winter!

See you in the Spring, Señor Redback!

Try to remember a Redback November. 2011

2011-11-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

November 8, 2011

We'd been having a bit of an Indian Summer. Though there had been "killing frost" and even some snow already, the promise of 65 degree temps had me asking my good friends Kate and Snag if I could rummage around in their yard... home of Redback Salamanders and Dekay's Snakes.

No DeKay's were about (I got there just before dusk... about 5 PM in these Daylight Savings Time days) but I saw a dozen Redbacks in about 20 minutes!! Some big, some small... all cute!

I does my heart so much good to lift rocks in November and see nature still hangin' out!

Man, I will miss Redbacks when we move to the South some day...

November 13, 2011

With warmer weather still upon us (low 60s in November? Hell yeah!), we once again asked our friends if we could rummage in their yard. Thankfully they're incredibly kind to their two loony neighbors! Not as many Redbacks as 5 days prior, but not too shabby overall!

This guy wanted to play some football!

A rare mammal sighting! A small Maybelle!

And some more robust Redbacks!

Peek-a-boo!

Is this it for 2011? Who knows?! Though the weather has turned cool again, I refuse to say die! Though, if this it... at least we ended on a cute picture!!

This could be the last time, it may be the last time... I don't know. 10-23-2011

2011-10-31T05:04:00.000-07:00

With the herping season pretty much over, we took our chances on this cool Sunday and went straight to Ponk. We went in the opposite direction, foregoing the dam and golf course and made the campground our destination. Being the day after a whirlwind, overnight trip to Hollywood the day before, this hike proved our tenacity, if not our stupidity.

There were no reptiles present, but our good friends the Redbacks (and Leadbacks) were present and we were very happy to see them. Here then is a gallery of late October Redbacks.

Less than a week later came the killing frost and snow. This might well be our last post for 2011. See you in the Spring!

Grasping at straws... mid-October 2011

2011-10-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

October 9, 2011

Both of us were feeling sick, but with potential herping days winding down, we set out to Myles Standish National Forest, in hopes of a day of hiking without the usual family riff-raff that pollutes this spot. Plus, we wanted to find some redbells and a hognose or two. The temps were supposed to be in the 70s.

So, feeling crappy, we drove our 50 miles to get there and did a good exploration of Electric Toadland. We talked to a ranger who said it was OK to look around there (nice to know... we weren't sure before). Although we gave the area a good lookin' through, we only saw this one Redback there.

We tried to go to College Pond, where we'd seen many turtles, redbells and a hognose before. It was closed. You couldn't park there ever to poke around. Fuckers. This was shaping up to be a yawnfest.

We settled on our usual walk, where we'd never actually seen anything before. We saw a chipmunk.

We talked to some equestrians who were nice and said they had seen a Green Snake the day before. That makes 3 people this year who have seen Greens without trying, while we (who work our asses off for snakes!) haven't seen any.

Anyway, this day was getting us exercise, but little else. We got a bit grumpy, what with feeling sick and all. Finally, we found two Peepers on the way out.

It helped but upon reflection, Myles Standish has pretty much sucked this year, except for the first visit. Not sure just how much we'll be visiting next year, glimpse of Hognose or not.

October 10, 2011

Andrea had work on Columbus Day. I did not. It was beautiful out. But I waited until she got out and we hit Allendale for a quick stroll. We got there at 5, knowing the sun would be going down soon.

We saw a few Redbacks, but they were difficult to photograph in the waning light. This is the best we could muster.

Down by the pond, this Redtailed Hawk was looking for some dinner.

This large Bullfrog stayed out of sight...

It was very beautiful at the pond...

The sun was setting and we still had a way to go. We started thinking about what lives in these woods. Coyotes and Deer, for sure. Oh... and Toads!

We found this guy while flipping a stone! Third toad this month that we found flipping stones! What a beauty!

No snakes, but a well spent couple of hours. Not bad for a Monday.

October 11, 2011
Bless our friends Kate and Snag. They put up with such shit from me! I dropped off a few things, or picked something up... I don't recall, and they were kind enough to let me flip again. On a Tuesday at 6:30 PM. Chalk up a young Dekays!

Could this lil guy be our last snake of the year? Perhaps...

October 20, 2011
Temps were in the high 60s and, though it had rained for 2 days, I figured a stroll through Allendale was worth a shot. It was pretty windy, too. Here's the spoils...
A big Redback between 2 pieces of wood.

A very cute, little Spotted Salamander.

And a nice speckled Redback.

I saw a Painted Turtle basking on a log in the pond but I scared him in as I tried to get close enough for my crappy camera to work. BLARGH!

I cut the trip short as it was very wet and I was prexing.

10-8-2011 Indian Summer at Boyden

2011-10-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

Following a week of cold and rain, we were delighted to hear that the weekend was going to be warm... like in the 70s and 80s warm! Sadly, the previous Wednesday night had had a frost in some places. What herp in their right mind would come out after a frost had happened? We wanted to see.

We chose Boyden because it has been a good late season spot before. Well, the abandoned house gave us a very nice surprise... one of the most beautiful Milk Snakes of the year! Andrea grabbed him for photos. Please indulge us as this guy was so beautiful... and he turned out to be our only snake.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeVille...

We put him down and he happily slithered back to his place between two boards.

And that is about as beautiful as you can get in nature!

I had my eyes really in tune in hopes of seeing more wildlife. Somehow, I saw this katydid in the grass-

After we photographed it, he pooed on my hand.

Redbacks were in abundance... some were small-

but many were humongous- among the largest I have ever seen! Here is a gallery of Reds and Leads for your amazement.

This one is with eggs... hers or slug eggs? I don't fucking know!

This one was buried up to his neck in soil...

There was a Spring Peeper out and about too... also quite large! (For a peeper...)

How 'bout a Green Frog?

That same puddle had this guy in it... egg tooth intact!

We'd peeked into this puddle but had initially seen nothing. Then we saw some hikers who said that 5 minutes before we got there, they'd seen a Snapping Turtle hatchling. So, we went back and scooped up mud and this guy was in it!

We put him down and he went back into the mud with surprising speed...

Toads? You bet! Here's a Fowler's!

And an American-

and another...

Can I get an "ooh ooh" for this Field Mouse?

While flipping stones in the fragrance garden on the way out, we were surprised by this very vocal American Toad!

Its chirping sounded a little something like this:

On the way out, we decided to check on our milky pal, to see if he was still there. He was.

It was a fine trip, despite the lack of multiple snakes. We'd have stayed longer, but we had to get to a party/ BBQ at out friends house. Our friends who have Dekays in their yard. Dekays that look like these ones...

These two mini-twins capped off a lovely herp day.

You just can't take us anywhere #2- Oct. 2 & 3rd, 2011

2011-10-05T15:48:00.001-07:00

OK, believe me... we love our friends Kate and Snag a lot! That's why we often visit them... to hang out and talk, sample beverages and just enjoy each others company! Can I help it if they have a known colony of Dekay's Snakes in their yard? Trust me... I'm NOT using them for their snakes. I love them dearly.

That said, we went by on Sunday, Oct. 2nd just to chit-chat a bit. We did stumble into the backyard and start flippin' stones, too. It just... happened.

These two guys might very well be the same Redback Salamander and Dekay's Snake from last Friday, seen in this post. I dunno, but I thought I'd show the pics anyhoo!

The Dekay's liked the look of Andrea's warm jacket sleeve and inspected it...

And settled in for a nap...

High above, this Crow was cawing, looking for some peanuts. He got them.

* * *

The next day, Monday October 3rd, was my work's Company Picnic. We always have our "summer" party at my boss Ira's house in Lexington. I had seen snakes there before,(here), so I figured that I'd bring my camera... just in case.

Ira is always telling me about the many happy and healthy Green Frogs that live in his (very beautiful) Koi Pond. He wasn't kidding! There was nearly a dozen just hanging out!

While leaning in for a quick snap of a Green Frog, I saw this wee Garter Snake laying there, nearly in the water!

Then, just before the company group shot, my lightning-like reflexes caught this Green Frog, much to Ira's horror.

He called my hand a Frog Straight-jacket.

Hey! Anyone want to have us over to destroy your stone walls, trample your flower gardens and harass your local fauna? Just give me a call!!

Welcome to October at Ponkapoag. 10-1-2011

2011-10-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

Cloudy and in the mid-60s. Ponk it is. Something's gotta be out!

The weather had been very rainy during the week, so Ponkapoag was quite moist (and cool) when we arrived at about 10AM. It seemed like a good day for amphibians, if not reptiles. Sure enough, first up was a Two Lined Salamander! (Our first official sighting here, though I probably mis-ID'd a few over the years... now I'm smaht!)

This little guy was squiggling like mad... we're lucky to get any shot at all!

Andrea soon countered with a nice Spotted Salamander!

Both of these guys were early on the path, long before we usually see ANYTHING! So... we wondered, would it be a real Redbacky day? It was indeed! But not yet...

A little pond (that is sometimes dry but it was full this day) was teeming with Green Frogs (and a Pickerel who we couldn't get a good shot of...)

It was pretty cloudy- no sun in sight. Snakes were very doubtful, but the 'Phibs had us happy!

Hey! Look who showed up! A Redback!

She nestled into a log next to some eggs that we thought might have been hers, but I've decided that they're slug eggs instead...

Near the dam, we found an evacuated turtle nest...

It is Snapper hatching season and we wondered if these shells were from hatching or predation. We hoped for the former.

Along the dam, I found nothing, except for this good sized skin...

Oh, how I hoped to find the owner!

Andrea quietly told me from the other side of the dam "Get over here... slowly and quietly" Snake?

She'd seen that these pebbles...

Weren't all pebbles!

This hatchling Snapping Turtle couldn't have been more than a day or two old! Egg-tooth still intact-

Yolk spot still on plastron, too!

What a cute fucking animal!!!!!

We put him back exactly where we found him, despite the want to take him home for the winter. Nearby was a Green Frog big enough to eat him!

A heron flew by too. Poor lil' guy! It's a tough world out there!

After resuming our walk, Andrea again called to me to her side. It seems a Water Snake had been basking (on this grey, cloudy, sunless day) but had slipped into the rocks. She could still see his tail. I went over and figured if I could grab his tail, I'd at least get another "I'm losing the tug-of-war shot"! Well, I grabbed his tail and he came right out!

No bites, either!

A real gentleman. Poor devil had some spine problems down by the vent... looks like a healed wound, like maybe a snapper bite. God bless musk!

So, we were very happy! Barely started and we'd seen a handful of herps!

After the golf course, Redbacks started being very abundant!

This guy was huge! Many were large but this guy takes the prize!

This guy thought he was hiding!

We wondered aloud... where are the leadbacks? Oh! Here's one!

Here's a Leadback and a Redback forming a trident! Devilishly clever!

Earthworms, as one might expect, were CRAZY this day!!! There were some massive ones too... like this 9 incher, who was sharing log space with a medium sized Redback!

One thing about Ponk this year that has disappointed us... we had seen no Ringneck Snakes. In years past, they had been so prevalent that we'd even lost count of them a few times! They used to come in second, behind Garters, for most often seen snakes. Not this year.

Therefore, you can imagine our joy at finally finding one at good ol' Ponk!

Just hangin' out under a rock, like Ringnecks do!

We let a little 3-year old girl hold him for a while, then we let him slide back under his rock.

Off the dock, I was looking for Snappers, which are sometimes there. Well, surprisingly, there was one... but it was another hatchling, just floating there 6 feet out, where the water was 6 feet deep! I call that fish food!

I maneuvered him towards the dock and hoisted him up, much to the delight of a gaggle of kids who were there, behaving for the most part.

Some even listened to me as I explained his egg tooth and yolk-hole.

Well, this day had turned out to be pretty exciting!

Here's something we can't ID... is this a turtle sharing the rock with the seagull? Multiple pictures proved nothing. Maybe it's some new, mysterious species of chelonian! Or maybe it's a pile of shit. The world may never know.

On the way out, we found this Red Squirrel ransacking some bags that some hikers had left on a picnic table. He didn't mind us... just wanted to enjoy his treasure!

So, Happy Autumn! The year ain't over yet!

Mah babies are growin' up! 9-30-2011

2011-10-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

We dropped by to say hi to our friends up the street. Yes, they have a stone wall in their back yard. Yes, they are kind enough to let us poke around!

Anyhoo, the wee new born seen here (or one of his siblings) seems to have had a meal or two! Now he's officially a shoestring!

I'm so proud.

Incidentally, there were some Redbacks nearby that were almost big enough to eat him!

That's all. Just happy to see a Friday night snake!

I cheated on my wife... 9-21-2011

2011-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Or at least that's what the woman at the pond in Allendale with her dog suggested.

Truth is, I hate herping without Andrea but since the weather was nice and Snake-Count week was coming to a close rapidly, I decided to take a quick solo walk. It was Andrea's suggestion. I swear!

Walking along with the camera clanging against my chest sucked. Having to keep an eye on both sides of the trail sucked. Not having Andrea near me REALLY sucked!

OK, I saw no snakes, either. I saw some Redbacks, but they were tough to photograph while holding up the log, fiddling with the camera and then pointing it... most had disappeared by the time I was ready. This guy threw me a bone.

The pond was quiet (except for a dog chasing a ball being heaved way out there by his owner, the aforementioned, scolding woman). This Bullfrog was massive... could have eaten the dog if he got close enough!

There was a tall water bird standing on the other side of the pond... I couldn't figure it out so I snapped a shot. He looked back at me in disgust...

Upon getting a better shot, I realized that it's a Cormorant... wading. I'm so used to seeing them diving or standing with their wings open that it really confused me for a bit. This guy was very big, too. A tall fella for sure.

Well, I only did an hour in there. I missed my wife. So, I went back to the car with nothing to add to the week's snake count. This Chipmunk laughed at me as I got into my car and left.

Sept, 18th 2011 Massasoit. I don't have a clever title.

2011-09-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

This guy is keeping an eye on you to make sure you're reading everything...

Second day in a row with temps in the low 60s, so we figured we'd get to Massasoit early to see who would be waking up.

First up, we saw a Green Frog taking his morning bath! Sexy! There was a Pickerel frog nearby peeking.

Hey look! A Redback!

Of course, we came for the snakes. We only found one... this gorgeous, dark Milk Snake.

He was decent sized, too. We thought at first he was getting ready to shed, because he was so dark, but he was shiny and iridescent. Beautiful chocolate brown saddles that showed some red in the sunlight.

Know why I love Andrea so much? She holds snakes while wearing SUSPIRIA t-shirts and a leather jacket!

He was very well behaved... just a quick nip when I first picked him up, though he, like many Milks, struck at the camera. Must have thought his own reflection was a menace. We let him go and he crawled back to his hiding place.

Nearby, an American Toad who was resting in a discarded car floor mat looked relieved that the Milk Snake was gone. The inchworm on his leg didn't care either way.

Hey look! Another Bufo Americanus! Nice to see these guys still out and about!

This snail was large and cool...

Not to be outdone, this chubby Fowler's Toad hopped into our lives.

Andrea found this fatso American Toad half burrowed into some dirt under some bark. He looked so put upon...

This tree, broken in the storm a couple of weeks ago, was sportin' some fine fungi!

I got a really up close look at a Pickerel Frog!

So, down by the pond that we love so much, we were disappointed by the lack of turtles. Then we took a shot of a log in the distance and saw this...

A shell! We slowly moved closer, while Andrea hissed "it's about fucking time we see a fucking turtle..." And not just any fucking turtle! It's a Musk Turtle basking! Maybe it's the same guy as our trip in July, because these guys are not supposed to be baskers!!

So we were happy to have seen a fucking turtle!

On the way out, we found a Fowler's Toad and a Pickerel Frog at the same time and it afforded us the opportunity to do a side by side comparison...

Please refer to these shots when someone asks what the differences are between toads and frogs.

Lastly, I present a shot showing a Fowler Toad's excellent camouflage...

OK, so we ended snake-count week with only one more addition. The sad last weekend of summer had come to a close, but we'd put in 11 1/2 hours of hiking time, so we have nothing to whine about come January.

Let's Count Snakes! Cutler- 9-17-2011

2011-09-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

Having not herped the week before, we were rarin' to go this weekend! The temp was supposed to be chilly (low 60s) but since it was National Snake Counting Week, we had so saddle up! Plus, it was the last weekend of summer.

We headed over to Cutler Park, knowing full well that we get frustrated there every time out. Oh well. We figured a cool morning (we got there at 9 AM) would be our best bet for Racers. I stand by our decision.

On the way there, in an empty church parking lot, there were 4 wild turkeys strutting along in line, looking very much like the Abbey Road cover! This is Lennon-

It was tough to get a good shot... moving birds from a moving car... As we got closer they split up and acted like turkeys instead of Beatles.

So, we got there, sprayed down and hit the trails. When we got to the supposed-Racer area (eyewitnesses and a skin find last year), it was flooded! The recent storms must have done a number on something. It wasn't just flooded... water was running and one side of the path was about 8 inches deep! We made our way by and looked for Racers. Nuthin. But we did see this lovely American Copper enjoying the early sun!

A mile of Racer Path yielded the usual... nothing, so we went through the tunnel (Racer Path runs next to an elevated train track) and into the wilds of Cutler.

At the very same time, on different sides of the path, Andrea and I both found salamanders! Andrea's was a Leadback that looked like this:

Mine was a Redback that squiggled away before I got my camera out. Bleh.

I redeemed myself with a Leadback of my own.

Cutler Park has a lot of marshland and boardwalks that go through it. One meadow area has a lot of discarded planks in it, which always looks like terrific snake habitat, but it has never before had any snakes! It did this day! A wee Garter!

Very photogenic was he!

He determined that Andrea's diamond was real.

I moved to another pile of boards and found a coil of two. I picked them up and realized that I actually had a handful of three baby Garters!

Feisty ones, at that!

Medic Alert!!

Andrea put one back as I found yet another shoe-string Garter!

She is hard-core. Here she is with 2 snakes in her hand while she photographs the new one!

This guy turned out to be feisty as hell, too!

So, we let them go

and went on, figuring we'd go to the Pond, at least. We'd only done that once before (on a really horrible, hot, herpless day) and figured... what the heck!

We found some Redbacks that we were actually able to photograph!

We also saw (in a very shady, cool puddle) these two Green Frogs!

The pond was quiet and we saw no turtles but a swan was hanging out!

We relaxed and had some trail mix, which we shared with this Chipmunk-

We decided to go all the way around the pond. Despite getting nearly CREAMED by bikes. To be honest, the pond area is way more populated by humans, bikes and dogs than we'd like. But we'd never done it before, so... around we went.

This Great Blue Heron shot is awesome. Andrea is a goddess.

But the Heron didn't think a silhouette shot displayed all of it's beauty, so it stepped into the sun. A diva always finds her light.

Frankly, we were a bit disappointed with the whole, exhausting pond area and have decided to not do it again. Leave it for the humans with kids and dogs. We'll stick to the woods where we only have to battle the bikes.

"Should we flip through the boards again on the way back?"
"Yes, but we can't pick up any shoe-string Garters... they might be repeats."

Such is our logic. We lifted some boards and Andrea grabbed this shoe-string Garter... definitely new... it's eyes were blue, ready to shed!

While she was *ahem* otherwise occupied behind some rocks and trees, I found this little guy-

Should I count him? Is he a repeat? I dunno. I counted him.

Back on the trail, we saw this Viceroy Butterfly!

Frogs were hopping along the flooded Racer path. I knelt down to see about catching one, lost my balance and fell in. I caught myself with my arm, but it went in up to the elbow. Redemption came with a Green Frog catch!

Along the boardwalk on the way out, there were some beautiful Beginning-of-the-End style grasshoppers.

So, we're calling our snake count 7. Sure that last guy might have been a double, but he earned being counted twice if he did in fact scale 3 feet of piled wood to get to where I found him.

6 1/2 hours of Cutler. Frustrating as always. But at least the meadow-boards produced. At least one female Garter agreed with us that it was a good snake habitat! This will be our last trip to Cutler for 2011.

Eft You, Ponkapoag! 9-5-2011

2011-09-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

OK, the weather was supposed to be crappy, so we didn't plan a Labor Day hike. It turned out that the weather wasn't crappy at all! In fact it was pretty nice! So, with a late start and all, we decided to hit Ponk!

It was pretty empty people-wise, which I love. One woman in a group asked what we were looking for and I said snakes. She said "ewww, gross... why?" and I got all passive-aggressive and said "because we love animals". I hate humans.

Anyhoo, it was light on the animals for some reason but here's what we did see...

A Pickerel Frog! Nice catch, Mike!

This Praying Mantis was a real cutie!

Andrea spied this Water Snake skin in the water... it was massive... probably about 3" wide which, even taking water swelling and flatness into consideration, it was from a thick snake! Who knows how long he might have been!

Andrea spied this little noggin sticking up... was it a frog? A turtle? Nope! Turned out to be a Water Snake... not the owner of that skin, however!

This guy was a decent 2-footer, but definitely not the freshly-shed behemoth! He stayed just out of reach... maybe he was the same guy from last time!

This wee Painted Turtle was catching some rays... all 2 1/2" of him! He was but a niblet.

We were well into the hike... 2/3 of the way around the pond, before we saw our first Redback! This photo sucks, but it's all we got to prove his existence!

We'd said we weren't going to flip at the campgrounds but there was only a small family of 3 there and they were in the water, so I flipped some stones. One stone, the size of a Frisbee, had a beautiful Milk Snake under it! A biggie, too!

What a gorgeous one! Caramel background, rich red saddles!

The kids swimming came up to touch him. As soon as they left, he nipped my pinky finger. It bled like mad! Hilarious!

One of my favorite things about my Al Feldstein tattoo is the great pictures that sometimes come up... like this one:

We put him down and he hung out in a pile of sticks for a while, then retreated right back to the same small rock he was under before!

After I stopped bleeding all over everything (he got me right in a good spot, I guess!) I found this lovely Leadback!

As we headed back to the car, we continued to flip. Under one piece of reddish bark, we found our first ever Red Eft at Ponkapoag!! 5 years of herping here and this is our first!

He was tiny and colored so much like the bark that we nearly missed him!

It's always nice to add a new species to a place! Especially when it's our favorite place! So, all told, this one was a quickie (for Ponk). Only about 3 1/2 hours but we're calling it a success!

A Hoar by any other name... 9-4-2011

2011-09-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

I slept in that Sunday. For the first time in many a weekends! (Thank you, Andrea... no thanks to kitties). I thought I had ruined any hopes of herping. But then, we have many places nearby and we hadn't been to Hoar for a while, so...

It was fairly warm, but we doubted we'd see any snakes. Never have at Hoar. Then again, we'd never seen ANY herps there on the first half of the trail! This time, we saw a Spotted Salamander pretty quickly! Unfortunately, none of the photos we got were good enough, so I can't prove it to anyone!

Not far along the trail, however, we found this brute!

He was resting under a small piece of bark!

Spotted Salamanders are the reason we love Hoar!

We found a few Redback Salamanders as well.

The ponds yielded neither frog nor turtle. Bummer, man.

Back into a wooded area, we were flipping and being regarded by a Red Tailed Hawk!

(Look- he hopped to a different branch!)

We didn't seem to bother him as we poked around right under his perch. A chipmunk ran by and exhibited some nervous behavior... not surprisingly!

I wondered aloud if we had seen toads at Hoar before. Andrea said "yeah- right along here"... and sure enough... there was one again! A fine young American Toad!

We ended the herp-lite trip with another, smaller Spottie, who hid his head in shame.

It was just a quick hike but man, did we get soaked. The humidity must have been about 346%! So we ended without many herps, but the biggest Spottie of the year (so far) and some amusing pics of a hawk. Better than nuthin'!

9-3-2011 What abandoned house?

2011-09-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

I had suggested Boyden Refuge in Taunton to my friend/ herptile-guru Gabe as a place to find Milk Snakes. He went and said "surprisingly, there was nothing near the abandoned house". Huh? What abandoned house? He said "the one near the parking area".

OK, we've been going there for 4 years and I'd always thought it was a caretaker's house or something! We'd always wished we could poke around it but didn't want to trespass. We specially planned this trip to Boyden just to see the house. Umm... we went up close to poke around...

Yep... pretty abandoned. Oops.

I wonder how many snakes we've missed over the years!! Unfortunately, there were none today.

So, we went on out merry way along our well-traveled path, finding a Redback first...

There was some damage from Tropical Storm Irene; some downed trees and piles of branches, but it didn't present us with many challenges.

The night before, we were with friends and one of those very friends, Craig, was describing the beauty of Milk Snakes to another friend, who we'll call Lisa! His words were our good luck charm and we found a Milk in the fragrance garden!

Quite a lovely one, don't you think? (Nippy, though with absolutely no force behind the bites...)

A mom with 5 boy-brat kids saw us with the Milk and so we had to let them touch it and stuff. Then the little monsters took off and started looking for snakes, much to their handler's consternation. One kid, who was less horrific than the other screeching creatures, found a tiny Garter Snake under a piece of tarp... one of my favorite flipping spots. The bastard. We photographed it in his hands because unlike the other little whelps, he knew how to handle it.

I shooed them off and we got back to herping. Luckily, another portion of tarp was hiding another baby Garter! There much have been a recent batch o' baby Garters!

We were happy to see some Painted Turtles sunning themselves in a spot that has been shell-free much of this year! Maybe, these are the two hatchlings that we moved near here last year in this post! My, how they've grown!!

This lovely, orangey American Toad hopped across the path...

Not far off the path, near Toad Hollow, a big Garter Snake was regarding us. He gave me quite a race and a small nip, but he wasn't as ornery as he looked.

He'd blown himself all up and flattened his head. He was roughly 30"! Biggest Garter this year, so far!

Next, Andrea did the impossible and not only saw, but CAUGHT a Spring Peeper!

I wish I was quick enough with the camera, because he jumped from her hand to her boob to her shoulder before settling on this leaf, giving us a great nature shot!

Over by the car graveyard, we were noticing many excavated turtle egg nests, like we usually do. We were wondering if any were from hatchlings or if the egg-shell litter was all from predation. At any rate, an excavation ditch seemed like a good place to corral some Toads (2 American and the darker one is a Fowlers) for a photo-op!

Another Fowler's stopped by to thank me for not including him in the wacky ditch shot.

One of our favorite things about Boyden is the varied habitat. Right next to this sandy area is the river, where other herps were hanging out! Like a small Bullfrog!

And a Pickerel Frog!

Further upriver, there were some Painted Turtles basking amid a family of preening swans!

While a nice, big stack in the distance looked on...

Back to a non-sandy wooded part, where we'd hoped to see some more snakes, a Wood Frog jumped across the path!

We got to the appliance graveyard and started flipping carpet remains, where we'd found a few snakes before. You never know what will turn up in this completely artificial but always utilized habitat! Like Redbacks!

We saw more turtle egg shells around and more excavated nests, which prompted Andrea to wonder aloud "Do any turtles actually hatch in this environment? Or do they all get eaten or something?"

Guess what was under one of the carpet pieces? The answer to her question!

She'd found a Spotted Turtle hatchling, a species we'd never encountered at Boyden before! This guy was so new to the world, that he still had the egg-sack umbilical spot on his plastron...

and his egg-tooth!

Needless to say, we fell in love with him!

Unsure of whether or not to play god, we moved him a bit closer to a nearby water source and placed him in some moist leaves. Hopefully, things will work out for him!

On the way out, elated from this lil' chelonian friend, we flipped a bit and found another spunky young Garter Snake!

Nice trip, eh?!

So, we got some lunch and went down Rt. 44 into Middleboro, where a very cool place is... Oliver Mill Park or, as I like to call it, the Blind Dead place!

There are stone ruins of old industrial mills still standing there, which looks cool enough, but it's on the Nemasket River and most people's photos of the place include at least one Water Snake!

Look at how cool this place is!

We poked around a bit, even as overgrown as it was. (It was also after 5+ hours in Boyden and late afternoon.) We figured that Water Snakes would be out of the question. Then Andrea saw this in a wall by the water...

Good eyes, huh?!

So, like any intrepid idiot, I tried to extricate him from the wall for a better look.

But it was a losing tug-of-war... he was good sized and I only had about 8 inches of his body. He, as the kids say, kicked my ass!

But we will be going back there. We're told there are many turtles and water snakes, and I believe it! I'd also like to see the River Herring run, which is an event that happens here!

My hands are tired. This is a long post.

Pre-Hurricane quickie! 8-27-2011

2011-09-03T05:05:00.001-07:00

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on us and my daughter's wedding mere hours away, we had one thing on our minds. Let's fit in a quick hike!!! Of course, Allendale is the closest, so... that's where we went!

The air was thick... you could feel the pressure of the impending storm. I wondered how that would affect animals. Well, we saw no snakes, but amphibians were not bothered!

First up was an always welcome Spotted Salamander!

This pic isn't great but I love the way that his otherwise-hidden spots reflect in Andrea's ring!

The pond had a bunch of Bullfrogs awaiting Irene...

Nearby, a Two-Lined Salamander was hanging out under a rock. He was like lightning and we almost didn't get a photo!

Anyone up for a handsome Leadback-phase Redback?

Look at how perfectly symmetrical this mushroom split!

So, I'll bet you're wondering... but isn't this the year of the toad? Didn't you see any toads? Come on you bastard... stop holding out on the damn toads! You bald headed cretin!!!

Ease up... Andrea finally found one! Here again, she demonstrates the proper way to be dainty while toad handling. This is a cute American Toad!

So, we got in a quick hour and a half hike, we made it to the wedding (which was lovely, thank you) and made it through Irene AND a family visit!

Crabby Tuesday 8-23-2011

2011-09-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to Guy N. Smith.

I don't like beaches. I hate getting sand in my shoes and underwear. I don't care for ocean water. I like woods and fresh water and snakes. That's why, when plans to meet a friend at Walden Pond (a snake-tastic place that we've not been to this year) changed to Castle Island, I was a bit grumpy. Screaming kids, exposed skin that should be always covered and no snakes. Pleh.

While we waited, at least we saw some Cormorants commandeer a small boat.

I happily pictured the Captain with his eyes pecked out, laying in a pool of blood and salt-water while this crew heckled him from the dock...

Finally, as it looked like we weren't going to meet our friends after all, Andrea went and got all logical on me. She said we should enjoy ourselves since were here. "How?", I thought... then she suggested looking for crabs.

My only real contact with picking up a crab was in the "Touch Tank" at the North Carolina Aquarium, where they had some kind of Spider Crab or King Crab or something that, when I picked him up, pinched my thumb so hard that a blood blister formed immediately under the nail! So, I approached these local guys with caution...

The shores and rocks were littered with shells and barnacles... I mean just alive with shells. Andrea found the first crab...

I got up my courage and grabbed this mellow one... it was just a molted shell...

Then we started catching live ones!!! (that first one is on a penny...)

As you see, once we realized that they don't pinch much, we weren't pussies anymore!

There were hermit crabs there too!

This guy took a stroll up my arm and it tickled!

Nature shot!! Check out that camouflage!

More Hermit Crabs!

More crabs!

Sometimes, when we lifted rocks, crabs would scurry and try to get under our shoes! (Here's my gratuitous "new hiking shoe" shot...)

These photos look like we're squashing them, but we were very careful NOT TO!

Some other things along the beach...

(Razor shell)

Sandworms... as seen in SQUIRM!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

These really long (the white part above is part of the pink part below) and gross worms...

And these tubey worm things that squirted when you poked 'em...

It looked something like this:

There were lots of Seagulls hunting crabs as well.

Imagine that... me having fun on a beach!! Once we left the "family-fun-zone" and started exploring on our own, it was a blast!! The only one more surprised than me is the Al Feldstein character on my arm!

New York Snake of Mind Aug. 19, 20, & 21st, 2011

2011-08-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

We were visiting my family in good ol' Rome NY, a city that I worked diligently to escape many years ago. Dead smack in the center of the state, it's very beautiful and was very snakeriffic in my youth. Turns out, it still is!

Now, my father is a huge ophidiophobe. That said, it was downright heroic of him to point me to some places where he'd seen (and run screaming from) snakes! Very brave was he!

Well, the stone wall in front of his house seemed like a good place to start. Under a rock was this gorgeous Garter Snake with reddish highlights!

The red didn't translate on camera very well, but you can see it a bit. I used to catch reddish Garters all of the time when I was a kid. This guy reminded me that I haven't ever seen one in Massachusetts. Interesting...

Near a neighbor's pond (still very close to my Dad's house) was this behemoth!!!

Man... we're lucky to have survived this beast!

This Millipede was almost bigger!

Also near (and in) that pond were...
A 2-Lined Salamander!

A Bull Frog

And loads of Pickerel Frogs that escaped our camera...

On Day 2 (Saturday, the 20th) we went to Boukville, a gigantic Antique show. Upon returning, we still had a little steam. We stopped at my sister's house to drop her and her husband off and behind her garage, in the garden, was this FATTY FAT FAT gravid Garter Snake!!

She took exception to the name-calling...

Back at my father's place, we sprayed down and looked around some more. The red guy from the day before was nestled up under a rock where we'd released him...

One of his neighbor's pond's resident Bullfrogs was poking its head up...

Andrea found herself with a post-Howlett-family car ride headache and excused herself to rest for a bit. Normally, I couldn't herp without her, but I was sprayed down and it was just too exciting to herp in a new spot that has so much potential! So shoot me!

I checked out a stone wall that ran along the edge of another neighbor's yard and found this Ready-To-Shed Garter! I only had my crappy little pocket camera, so these are as good as I got...

This guy will be a stunner when the shed is done!

There is a small brook that runs next to the property. I lifted a flat rock that was about 6 feet from the brook and... a Water Snake!! Under a rock!! In my excitement, I dropped my crappy camera as I grabbed for the snake. I couldn't get it to work as he, like Water Snakes do, bit the hell out of me. So, I walked back to the house, put my snake-hand under my shirt (thankfully, he'd stopped biting by now) and went in to get Andrea's camera. Here's what he looked like!

Check out my ring finger on the last shot... that's where he was nibblin'.

OK, after that, I was tired and retired for a quick nap myself!

We left for home that Sunday morning at about 10AM. We'd hoped to stop and check out my sister's house on the way out, as she'd said she'd seen many Green Snakes as well as Garters. It was raining, though. But then, it's only water so we stopped and checked out her koi pond, land of many serpents. I mean, just look at it!

So nuff, rain didn't matter... first up was another reddish Garter!

Andrea was happily photographing this one while I found 2 other Garters... one was definitely more of an asshole than the other. Keep you eye on the more yellowey one...

We added the first guy to the mix for the famous "fistfull of snake" photo...

But that didn't stop Chompey. (I love how the other snake looks embarrassed here...)

OK... I put them back. You win, Chompy.

Next up? A Dekay's Snake!

Andrea was in a groove, getting some awesome shots!

A Green Frog made himself known in the pond...

Then, a newborn Dekay's!

Then I lifted some sod and a belly was hanging down! Another Dekay's!

It was very tough to get a fistfull of snake shot with these two, so we opted for a fingers-full-of-snake shot instead...

The little guy crawled back into his home...

That's all we got, though we were rooting around in my sister's garage where handfulls of Garters have been known to hang out. I rustled one up and he crawled towards Andrea who got him, but just by the tip of the tail and he swung away. If only I could show the vision that I saw... Andrea in the dark, silhouetted against the light outside with a nice Garter in her hand. Oh well.

Needless to say, it was a fun weekend!

8-18-2011- LBS update

2011-08-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

We were having a quick visit with our friends Snag and Kate and, as usual, they were kind enough to let us flip a few rocks on our way out. If you recall the very end of this post, we had what we thought was a very pregnant Dekay's Snake. Well, lookie what we found! A newborn!

This lil' fella was barely more than 3"!!

It's interesting to note that young Dekay's are darker and their neck has a bit of a ring on it. At first glance, I thought I had a Ringneck. So tiny was he, that I couldn't pick him up alone... I needed Andrea to scoop under his chin and grab him. There was just no body to grab!!

Further along the wall was a cute and normal sized Dekay's.

Man, I wish this was our yard!! Luckily, we have such awesome friends that we can look around whenever we want!!! Thanks, Snag and Kate!!!!

Who put the Ponk?! 8-13-2011

2011-08-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just gotta go to your favorite spots. Ponkapoag Pond is ours. We know the main trail by heart and there are many wonderful species of herps to be found!

We decided going in that we would explore some of the less familiar off-shoot trails since many of our nature walks this year have been marathons. Ponk usually takes roughly 4 1/2 hours. We could spare more.

True to 2011, our first sight was an American Toad! Here, Miss Andrea displays the proper way for a laydee to hold a toad.

It was nice to see a Painted Turtle basking close enough where we could get some good pictures! Each photo looked sillier than the last!

Andrea found this Northern Water Snake tooling around.

He was decent sized and had some lovely red saddles. He stayed just out of reach so we couldn't wrangle him in for close-ups. No matter... Andrea got some great shots!

Not far away, this Bullfrog was hangin' out, chillin' on a Saturday afternoon...

So was this fishie...

During the dog days of summer, one tends to forget about the Redback Salamanders. There were a few hangin' loose.

We hadn't gone down the boardwalk through the bog in a while... I don't think we did at all last year. So, we took a stroll. I'm happy to say that they fixed it up and there weren't any underwater planks!

Our first Bog herp was this Pickerel Frog... our frog in a bog!

We also saw a thin Garter Snake and more Pickerel Frogs in the bog, but were unable to get pictures.

First thing out of the bog, we saw another Pickerel! I managed to grab him for close-ups! (Though it wasn't easy!)

While I was wrangling the frog, Andrea was finding this partially devoured Stinkhorn. These dick-shrooms are a new one on me.

I checked my watch and saw that it was Redback O'Clock!!!

We saw another Garter that eluded our camera. We took an off-shoot trail that we had always enticed us, but he hadn't tried. We found this MONSTER SNAKE there!!!!!!

This wee Garter Snake couldn't have been more than a day or old! The funny thing is, when I bent down to pick him up, he stopped and struck at me!! Feisty little devil! All noggin and vinegar!

Hey look! Another Redback!

We got to our favorite stone wall, where we've seen Garters, Milks, and Ringnecks before. Who was here this time? An opera singing Ribbon Snake!!

He was going blue, starting to go into a shed and was a tad unhappy to be picked up. A little girl was looking at him and asked if she could hold him. I warned her that he was cantankerous. She assured me that she was good with snakes (she named a few kinds she had seen in her long, seven years or so of life...). I handed the Ribbon over to her and she held it for a while. It calmed down and practically slept in her hands. The Snake Whisperer 2!

This Cormorant watched in disbelief, from a distance.

I got hungry and reached for a pretzel, but it was in fact a Garter Snake!

This fella came out of nowhere when I was rolling a log. He must have been under some leaves where I was perched.
He got pretty cozy in the original snake whisperer's hands...

He was so comfy that I suggested that we put him down on the log for a real nature shot. We did and he did a back-flip off and slithered away. I gave him a 9.6, the Swedish Judge gave him a 9.4.

Ah, Ponk... how I love thee! 5 1/2 hours of herptastic goodness!

Snakeless in Taunton 8-6-11

2011-08-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Since it had been over a week, we were of course ACHING to get out and herp! So, we decided to go to Massasoit, where we'd had such good luck a month ago! Rising early didn't really happen, but we got up there by 11 AM.

Our first encounter was an avian friend... a, dare I say, Great Egret! It was hunting along the edge of the lake.

OK... there were boatloads of toads. Tiny ones. Should I just do a photo-show and not bother with cutesy verbage? OK!

Hey! That's not a toad! It seems Andrea did the impossible and caught a Wood Frog!

We decided that, with the abundance of tiny toads, that big hand/ tiny toad shots were getting old, so we thought we'd mix it up with nature shots or at least fake nature shots! Here's what we got...

OK... A for effort, eh?

We saw this weird grasshopper... Anyone know their bugs?

We got over to the "lake" that was turtle-centric on the last visit but to our surprise, was chelonian-free this time! Some Green Frogs gave us solace...

Birds were plentiful, like these ducks.

The stone wall that had given us 2 Ringnecks before held no snakes this time, but flipping did give us some surprises... like Toads!!

This guy was buried in sand up to his neck... under a heavy rock!

One rock held this treasure... Milk Snake eggs, we think.

Unfortunatly, they were dried up and not viable.

It should be noted that right around here, a huge (nearly 3 ft?) Garter Snake crawled right past us and deep into the wall before we knew what we were seeing. Oops. We dug for quite a while, but it was long gone. Beside ourselves, we were.

We explored around the pond further, finding new trails and herping spots. Zillions of tiny toads, but nothing there eating them. There were many tracks in the sand... little birdies dirty feet!

Some of those prints belonged to this fearless Sandpiper! He started singing folk music to us.

OK... the tiny toads were getting to be crazy... so many of them! So, we decided to make the giant hand/ tiny toad shots count!

I had about 11 in my hands at once, but when I opened my hands, they jumped out! This is the best we could do!

One the way back, I looked through the stone wall for a bit longer while Andrea caught a quick kip...

And looked cute...

We didn't get lost this time on the way out!! We also added one last hopping 'phib to our tally... a nice Pickerel Frog!

(Like our faux-nature shot here?)

So, in 5 1/2 hours, no snakes (except for... well, we wont mention him!), no turtles and no Salamanders! BUT, loads o' toads and enough frogs to satisfy us! We left happy!

7-27-2011... another LBS

2011-08-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

OK... nothing fancy here.

We were visiting our friends Kate and Snag. Upon our departure, we asked if we could flip a rock or two. It was dusk. There was a Dekay's Snake hanging out.

We photographed him. Then we released him and went home. Story over.

Shit... all blog posts should be this easy!

To Bee or not to Bee... Myles Standish 7-24-2011

2011-08-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

Going on a species-specific nature walk is a recipe for disappointment every time. When we go to Cutler, not seeing a Racer makes the trip seem like a failure. So when we decided to spend the day at Myles Standish State Forest looking for Hognosed Snakes, we knew going in that we were doomed for failure.

We tried to cover new ground, poking around many new places in the area. As usual, toads (mostly Fowler's again) were all over, which was good for our search... Hoggies eat toads!

Rows of Painted Turtles were basking but they were very difficult to photograph. But it looked something like this...

We flipped a board that we'd flipped the last time and found another brown phase Red Belly, but this gal was ready to burst!! If this snake ain't gravid, I don't know what is!! Andrea gently caught her for photos.

More delightful toads followed, and some of these giants wanted to inspect the inkwork on my arm! Note the wee one's club foot!

We found a new place up towards the top of the forest. We were greeted by this sign.

Something to be careful of as when I was a wee one myself, I would blow up like a balloon with a sting! I haven't been stung in 40 years... who knows how I'd react now!!

Sure enough, there were bees! They were brought in to keep the cranberry bogs all pollinated, I guess.

Many beautiful sights awaited us within... like the Pee Tree!

The non-Pee Vulture Tree!

This sexy water spider!

And this young Bullfrog!

The habitat was perfect for Hognosed Snakes, but we didn't see any. We headed back towards the lot. We'd heard some motorbikes tooling around nearby (the sandy trails would be perfect for that!) but thought nothing of it.

I started back along a path to see if it connected to the Bullfrog area while Andrea stayed st the trails entrance. Half way down something was buzzing me... I said "what the fuck?" and then heard Andrea yell from 20 feet back "BEES"!!!

That's the code word for "Run Your Ass Off"! I ran in the wrong direction first, then had to double back through the swarm. They were all over us! We ran at top speed for about a 1/2 of a football field's length, but they were still swarming us! So we kept running! I was ripping my shirt off as I had been stung through it. "I've been stung!" After about 100 yards. I just had to stop as I couldn't breath anymore. A fat old bastard like me can't run that far! I gasped for breath. Andrea's hair was wild and her eyes were crazy. But it seemed as though we'd finally gotten far enough away from their nest. I'd been stung twice.

Evidently, the motorbike had stirred up the nest before I headed down the path..

My reaction was not bad. My shoulder sting hurt a bit but only swelled a little. My arm sting wasn't bad at all. Yay!!

We headed to the car, shaken but not stirred. We found some sweet wild blackberries to console us. When I went to put my shirt on, there was a bee in it. I shook him out and ran away for a while.

We got into the car and regrouped. We decided to walk for a bit more and went to a long sandy trail that we'd seen when we were lost the last time. It was just the tonic to remind us that there is beauty amidst the horror of nature!! And TOADS!!!

It became evident that we weren't going to find any Hognosed Snakes, but we enjoyed another 2 hours of trail walking. Eventually, we decided to concentrate on Low Bush Blueberries which were in season and picked a container full of them, which we enjoyed for a few days to come!

So... I'm not allergic to bees now, it seems! As it turns out, I'd rather get stung by these fuckers than get mosquito bites! Skeeters make me itch like a mofo- a bee sting is over fairly quickly!

New Shoes!! Let's break 'em in! 7-15-2011

2011-07-31T06:13:00.000-07:00

Since we are so keen on getting into the woods and doing long hikes, yet we both have painful, crappy feet, we decided to take the plunge and get some actual hiking shoes. God help me, we went into an LL Bean and spent some money! Take away my lifelong punk credentials right now!

Before heading out on a long walk and risking new-shoe-blisters, we decided on a short break-in hike through Allendale Woods. I picked Andrea up from the train station after work and we headed over, getting there by about 5:45 PM.

The shoes felt OK and the woods were cool and pleasant. We found this dragonfly molt in pretty good condition...

We didn't expect to see any snakes, though we did some flippin'. To our surprise, this chubby little Garter Snake was still out and about, probably looking to stuff a few more tiny toads into it's gullet!

It's hard to guess how many toads this might be in his belly, but this is a satisfied snake, for sure!

One of the American Toads he missed was hopping nearby...

The early evening is always a good time to hear and see Bullfrogs, and the pond was active!

This guy was great... first he just looked hilarious...

Then he climbed out of the water a bit to try to look threatening to Andrea, puffing himself up and looking formidable!

Along the path, we found this massive brute!

And this lovable American Toad who was lumbering along gracelessly!

I tried to film his sloppy hopping, but it didn't come out very good. The picture of my attempt is, however, hilarious!

So, the shoes seem OK and we saw some herps in a whirlwind quickie of a hike (under 2 hours!!)... and saw what we considered to be a "bonus snake"!

Luckily, we enjoyed ourselves for that brief hike on a Friday evening, because it proved to be our only hike for that very busy weekend!

Back to familiar... Boyden 7-9-2011

2011-07-13T15:32:00.001-07:00

Well, we had been trying out a lot of new spots of late and since we got lost at 2 of them, we decided to go to one of our favorite places, one that we're very familiar with... Boyden Refuge in Taunton. We hadn't expected to be able to herp that day, but plans changed so with a late start, we headed out.

We arrived way later than normal... we hit the trail at High Noon. We got things started with a few nice Redbacks!

Surprisingly, there weren't many turtles about, save for this Painted Turtle who was doing his yoga, face hidden to the camera.

It's still the season for tiny toads and Boyden was positively hoppin' with them!

It was very moist there, having had heavy rain for two nights prior, so it was good n' shroomy!

There was even a rare Butt-shroom!

Further along, we found what looked like speedy tiny toads, but were in fact tiny Spring Peepers!

This guy wanted a closer look at the detailed ink on my arm...

American Toads continued to pop up in all sizes!

No matter how small they are, toads always look so put-upon!

Andrea got this nice snap of a dragonfly at the waterfall...

We'd seen many Pickerel Frogs along the trails, but were unable to photograph them. This Green Frog sat for his portrait, though.

I think he might be the same guy that we found here. It must be his crib, yo.

Again, with so many toads, it was surprising that we didn't see any snakes! But then, we had arrived late... they might have already eaten and were resting. Digging through some soggy carpet, I proved my theory!

This fella had some real girth, like he'd just eaten a dozen tiny toads. He musked audibly... right up my arm, but luckily, it didn't stink much. Even if it did, how could I have gotten angry at this face?!

He was very interested in getting a close-up from Andrea!

Andrea, who has excellent eyes, managed to find this TT... ridiculously small!

This guy posed so beautifully, we took many pics! Such regal beauty!

So, then we were walking along, almost ready to call it a day, when a Garter Snake shot across the path like lightning! We looked beyond a log into the brush behind it and didn't see him. So... I rolled the log. There he was!!!

As I leaned forward and reached for him, a sharp jagged stick stuck into my right eye at the same time! It was like fire shooting through my face! Being the intrepid herper (read: idiot) that I am, I held the snake over my shoulder for Andrea to take and get the shot, while I lay with my face in my hands, writhing in pain.

This is the culprit.

Through the searing pain and not knowing if my eye was even still inside, I heard Andrea say that he'd musked the camera. I chuckled despite myself.

Eventually, I determined that my eye was in fact still intact, though it was sure in a lot of pain, and leaking ichor. I regained my composure after a while and posed with my new pal, who'd kicked my ass royally.

We let him go and he crawled off as if nothing had happened.

Well, my eye really hurt, but we'd already planned on Chinese Buffet (Beige Food) so we hit the Mandarin Restaurant on the way home. Then I drove home. At times, there was such white-hot stabs of pain in my eye that I almost drove off the road. But I didn't.

At home I showered. Rinsing my eye was a big mistake... the pain was unbearable. I napped for a bit. When I woke up, I couldn't go a few minutes without those shooting pains. I couldn't watch a Hicksploitation movie!!! I decided to go to the ER to have them take a look and give me something to slather on it. Second big mistake...

OK... we knew it would take forever. And it did. The Faulkner Hospital was hoppin' with drama at 9:30 on a Saturday night. I finally got a room and they brought in the wondrous Eyebox!

Maybe I'd get an all-new orb!!

EVENTUALLY... a doctor graced us with his presence. He looked, then decided I needed a cat-scan. We had to wait more. Andrea did her BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE impression...

Eventually, I went for my cat-scan. I had to stay on a stretcher, which the orderly (a self-confessed Jerry Lewis fan) kept bumping into doors and walls. Andrea wasn't amused with the wait.

The cat-scan showed evidence of wood stuck in the eye, as well as a scratched and bruised cornea. Their treatment? Send me over to Mass Eye and Ear! By ambulance! They couldn't find an eyepatch (so I'd look cool) so they taped a flippin' urine cup to my face! I looked like a low-rent cyborg!

OK... long story short, since I'm out of pictures. I had another cat-scan at ME&E, they saw something too, though the attending doctor did not. They poked and prodded and generally tortured me (when they weren't completely ignoring me). A specialist was brought in and she said the thing should work it's way out with some eye-goo. (That had been my plan... 11 hours earlier!!!) At any rate, by 8:30 AM, with only a few dozes of sleep, they sprung me... with a prescription for goo.

The whatever-it-was stuck in my eye does indeed seem to have worked its way out... no more stabbing flashes of pain, and the swelling and redness are much better. As is the pain. The bruise is yellowey, so my eye looks stupid, but at least I don't have a fucking urine cup taped to my face! The scratched part is still pretty red, but it's getting better every day. Vision is fine. 4 days later, I'm very pleased with the progress.

So... 2 emergency rooms, two cat-scans, an ambulance ride, untold amounts of pain and money spent... was it worth it?

Hell yeah!

Just kill me... I MISSED A HOGGIE!!!! 7-3-2011

2011-07-08T12:16:00.001-07:00

So... we went to Myles Standish State Forest in Carver, MA, near the cape. The place is loaded with ponds and trails and we wanted to see what it has to offer. We hit some Cape traffic, but nothing so bad that we had to retreat.

Once inside the MSSF, we pulled off in one spot to flip a little. Sandy soil. Hmmm... not what we're used to in town. Electrical towers buzzed over our heads. Flipping produced some nice, colorful Fowlers Toads!

We were really impressed with their yellow legs! They're now known as the Electric Toads! (Didn't they have a hit back in '67?)

We headed further down the road and decided to park ($5) in the College Pond parking lot. We'd just passed a small pond where I could see stacks of turtles, so it looked like as good a place as any! Here is that stack...

Though Plymouth County is where you can find the endangered Red Bellied Slider, I'm pretty sure that all of these (and subsequent turtles) are Painted Turtles.

Across the street from that pond was another one, where the above Painted was basking. Nothing we did seemed to bother him at all.

Looking down, we noticed a familiar sight of late... tiny toads!!!

So yeah, we were poking around the pond, looking for tiny toads. Someone else was, too. At the same time, Andrea and I both noticed a portion of snake body, hidden in the bushes. It was yellowish/ tan with black splotch saddles on it. Keeled scales. Heavy bodied. I hesitated for a moment, being a new skin pattern to me. I thought... Hognose! But I also thought, despite the completely wrong habitat, that there was a shred of possibility that it wasn't... Timber Rattlesnakes have a similar pattern and color in the light phase. I wanted to get a better look.

I lifted another portion of the bush to try to see the head. I saw only a slight bit more before it disappeared. Unbelievably pissed at myself, I spent the next 10 minutes digging through that brush looking for what I was now positive was a hoggie. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!!!! We returned to the same spot 3 or 4 more times in the next 2 hours. Nuthin'. FUCK! Not even a picture.

What the hell happened to Hognose Snakes acting like a cobra or playing dead??? This guy just (slowly) crawled off??? AND I FUCKING DIDN'T GET A PICTURE!!!! I'm still (5 days later) so pissed at my moment of hesitation. Now I'm obsessed and WILL find one this year. Or die trying!!!!

After calming down a bit, we continued on. The beach area of the main pond (College Pond) was littered with humans, so we stayed around the sides, flipping logs and staying out of the way of noisy, filthy, despicable humanity. One very good thing then happened... I flipped a board and what I first had thought was a Dekay's Snake turned out to be our first Redbelly Snake!!! A lovely golden brown phase!

That made up for the Hoggie miss... a little.

As we kept poking around, I was telling Andrea that there is another color phase of the Redbelly... a charcoal color. Guess what was under a piece of bark?

So at least we managed both Redbelly color phases (and there are interim colors as well), even if I was a huge failure with the Hoggie.

To go with the Redbelly, Andrea found a Redback Salamander, who was (I'm pretty sure with this one) guarding her eggs!

Of course, we never really strayed far from the sight of the Hoggie-miss, but Painted Turtles didn't seem to mind our return... they kept stacking in the sun!

This is that same solo guy from before, but with a friend... looking a bit like a two-headed turtle...

Some avian friends were about too... this duck was hanging on the beach with her babies, being far less obnoxious than the humans doing the same thing!

We finally decided to move to a different area and packed up and moved to a non-beach trail area. There was a lovely paved trail, but we were grateful to find lesser trails, where we might see some herps.

The soil was still very sandy... in fact, the trail broke into big sandtraps at times. We saw someone buzz past... it was this little toad!

It's interesting to note how light he is. Blended right in with the sand. In fact, all of the Fowlers Toads that we saw in this stretch, even when they had designs, had a very light base color. Darwin, I ain't, but this was pretty cool!

The absence of Garter Snakes was once again surprising... so many tasty little toads.

Then we got really lost. For about an hour and a half! Our map was pretty useless on the trails. Trails were marked, but the map didn't have those numbers on it. So, we trudged through the woods (and fuckloads of poison ivy... guess I'm immune!) looking for the right path. We did come to a lovely clearing...

But that was little consolation. I kept wondering if the powers that be would at least throw us a bone and let us see a Hognose (toads, man! So many toads!) or a Box Turtle, but no... such was not our luck.

We finally hit the end of a trail and... the parking lot was there with our car sitting alone... everyone else had left. Ahhhh, I knew it was there all along!! (yeah, right!)

So, we were completely exhausted. On the way home, we summed up our bitter sweet day. Missed the Hoggie... found 2 Redbellies! Saw lots of herps... got lost. I'll have to give this day a thumbs up, but with a huge asterisk.

Andrea makes a good point about the Hognose. At least we know where they are now. Plus, with the Redbellies, we've now seen and photographed 8 of the 14 Massachusetts snake species this year. Not bad.

But it should have been 9...

7-2-2011 WE FOUND LOST POND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-07-06T15:56:00.001-07:00

Well, not such an impressive feat, really. It's well marked and even has a boardwalk leading to it.

Anyhoo, we checked out Lost Pond Reservation in Chestnut Hill, a place I pretty much drive past every day. We only had time for a quick hike, so we tried something new.

It's a very beautiful and green place. When we had walked a ways, we saw the boardwalk leading to the "lost" pond itself. Next to the planks, this large Green Frog was waiting for us.

The pond is a truly beautiful sight, sequestered deep in the woods, which are themselves hidden behind a neighborhood off of Hammond Pond Parkway.

In this serene setting, one of the most beautiful Bullfrogs that I have ever seen was enjoying a soak. Bright green and yellow, this guy was stylin'!

The duckweed was super thick, but he didn't mind.

Tis the season and yes... tiny toads were there too!

We found this Redback Salamander...

And she was guarding something special... her eggs! (I think... they may be slug eggs- they both look similar, but I'm going with my gut.)

We only spent an hour and a half in this lovely little spot, but plan to return soon. No doubt there are Garter Snakes there. A notice also says Spotted Salamanders and Painted Turtles live there. Yay! More to find!

You just can't take us anywhere! (June 19th and 25th, 2011)

2011-07-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

So there we were, the day after that great trip to Massasoit and it was Father's Day, June 19th... a day to spend with family. So, we visited Andrea's Dad and were hanging out. Andrea suddenly got the need to herp. She'd seen little brown snakes and salamanders in her folks' yard as a child, so she went out to dig... and found this petite Redback Salamander!

So, on the way home (at 7 PM) we decided to take a quick walk to the ponds in the Arboretum before the sun went down. In that half hour we saw some Bullfrogs and a wee Painted Turtle who was foraging.

It just felt nice to see some herps with little to no effort!

The next weekend, we went to our pal Jeff Taylor's housewarming party! He has a lovely house with a huge yard! Unable to resist, I kept my eyes on a stone wall that he had said has some Garter Snakes every once in a while. Bingo! I saw this!

So I grabbed him. He musked me badly and got all flat and threatening, but was a good guy overall! Decent sized, as well!

Jef, a good friend to all animals, has a superb nature blog called The Urban Pantheist, which everyone should check out!

So, if we seem distracted at parties or family gatherings, we're probably just keeping our eyes peeled for herps!

Something new... Massasoit State Park 6-18-2011

2011-06-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

We'd passed signs for Massasoit State Park dozens of times when en route to Boyden and had always wondered if it would be "any good". We decided to go for it on a sunny Saturday.

We drove there and excitedly pulled over before getting to the actual state park because the lake looked so nice. We poked around a bit because it looked very promising. Sure enough, this wee Painted Turtle was swimming around a thickly padded area, possibly a nursery.

After a bit, we headed to the park proper. We had a (not very detailed) map printed out. We decided to peek into a cranberry bog to start things off. This Pickerel Frog was in it, giving us the chance to describe this picture as A Frog In A Bog...

We headed onto the trails, not really able to tell on the map where we were. No problem. It's a beautiful place, lost or not.

We were in for a super toady day! First up was this Fowler's Toad!

This guy had some serious thoughts on his mind...

I flipped a log looking for salamanders and was surprised to see this Ringneck Snake coiled under it. I often forget that they sometimes like dark, moist and cool places!

Flipping didn't produce too many salamanders, but one log gave us two! This Leadback...

And this Redback!

Let's enjoy some more toads, both Fowler's and American.

We got to a lovely pond and saw a family of swans!

Andrea got this shot... we weren't sure what we had...

Pointy face... higher domed shell than the usual painted...

As we got closer we saw that what we had was a Musk Turtle basking!! A very rare sight indeed!

Wow! Not to be outdone, every available spot was stacked with Painted Turtles!

Andrea noticed movement on the ground. Why it wasn't bugs at all... it was tiny new toads!!

The camera caught this guy in mid hop!

This tadpole had some legs coming in. I haven't ID'd it yet...

The beach had a musk turtle skeleton on it... sad, but interesting.

A flat rock wall. Hmmm... let's flip! Ringnecks! Andrea caught two! This first guy had a super-bright belly!

The next one was no less beautiful...

So... then we saw some toads!

I never get tired of my Bufo Buddies... there is such variation in colors and sizes and all are cuter than hell!

Less easy to catch than toads? Black Racers!

This guy was deep in a shed, so much so that even his belly looked bluish. That helped me get him under control for pictures, for sure. Notice his bottom lip. He's suffered a bad injury, but it was healing nicely. A very cute lil fella!

The same area where we found the racer gave us another beauty. I saw a coil sticking out and got Andrea ready. I wanted to flip the wood all the way because, being a new place, you can't be too careful. We got a good sized, gorgeous Milk Snake!

He was caramel colored between his saddles. Very lovely indeed!

What a friggin' rush!

Did I mention that we saw toads?

We got a little bit lost getting out (the penis tree pointed us in the wrong direction), but we made it out eventually!

Driving home, we were thinking about what a great day it had been! 6 hours in the woods and tons of wonderful herps! We stopped to eat and thought about the fact that we were running very late in getting to a friend's house for an evening get-together. We put off our showers until later and headed straight there.

We'd seen Dekay's Snakes in their yard before, so we figured... what the hell? Let's flip! One mini-Dekay evaded our camera but not this gal!

I do believe we had a gravid female here!

While Andrea was gently handling the expecting momma (who had musked the living hell out of me in front of friends... grrr...) I found another adult Dekays!

So, shit. Was that a great day or what?! This will be one of the best herp days of the year, I predict! Massasoit is now permanently in our location rotation!

Excersise weekend Part Two- Ponk 6-5-2011

2011-06-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

OK, baked though we were from the day before (and a pained leg on my part), we threw caution to the wind and set out again, in hopes of snakes. The day was sunny and warm.

Our favorite vernal pond gave us this bright Green Frog

and this egg mass, which I can't for the life of me figure out. Does it look green because of algae? I dunno! Any help is appreciated!

The dam was damn hoppin'! And not just with this Bullfrog!

Andrea had shell-eye going... she just couldn't miss the young turtles who were basking, mostly hidden by plant life. Here are a few Painted Turtles and Spotted Turtles that she spotted...

It was ridiculous how well she was spotting these guys... all 10-15 feet away and none more than a 4" carapace! Lucky me... I got to see my first spotties of the year thanks to her!

Next up was this very speckled Leadback!

And a classic Redback!

Chipmunks were all over again... like this one-

We finally tracked down a snake... a young Garter who made me work for it!

This little guy was difficult to photograph... very squirmy!

"Bormph?"

Here's a gorgeous Spicebush Swallowtail, whose tail wasn't showing the... err... swallows.

Andrea found a rocky outcrop over the pond that has some inhabitants... we couldn't secure them for better shots, but these Northern Water Snakes liked it that way!

Just sunning his noggin...

Have I ever mentioned Nemesis, the medium to large Garter Snake that always hangs in a particular spot at Ponk? Well, he's handed me my ass dozens of times over the years. I saw him this day. Had my stick on his tail. He got away. Heard him again and saw where he was... then lost him. NEMESIS, I'LL GET YOU YET!!! (Nemesis sighting #1 for 2011)

Finally, this very bright Redback closed our walk.

Excersise weekend Part One- Taunton 6-4-11

2011-06-16T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to show pretty pictures. Because really... who reads this stuff? Even I don't!

We saw some cool dragonflies!

This one liked me! (Or at least is a Cheap Trick fan...)

We saw this pterodactyl circling the water, making weird sounds...

But it was just a kingfisher.

A Painted turtle was enjoying a bask...

A bullfrog was enjoying a dunk...

A spider was enjoying its web...

While this one (that I can't seem to ID) was almost big enough to lift with my snake-stick!

Flipping produced plenty of mice!

Redbacks were in abundance...

We missed a quick garter snake but found this Milk Snake (in a new spot) who was ready for a shed...

There were plenty of dug-up turtle nests, many of which had just been laid. The culprits (raccoons? skunks?) didn't even finish their job. There were broken but uneaten eggs all over...

Luckily, there are plenty of turtles still around ready to make more babies!

Stacks of 'em, in fact!

Still, we'd hoped for more snakes. We tried out new paths but wound up with no new hot spots. We were so hard up for snakes that we went back to where we'd found the Milk to see if he was still in the same pile from 3 hours earlier! He was!

We also found this behemoth Redback...

One thing that must be said for Boyden Refuge... it's ant-tastic!

Cutler Continues Kicking our Culos! 5-30-2011

2011-06-03T15:32:00.000-07:00

Dare we herp 4 days in a row? Hell yeah!

We got an early start, planning to get to Cutler early enough to see some of those alleged Black Racers that we've heard stories about and seen skins from, but haven't ever seen in the flesh. Well, we got there by 10:30, which should have been OK, as it was overcast and cooler than it has been of late.

Our first herp was a lovely female Snapping Turtle who had just deposited some eggs in a sandy part of Cutler, right in the middle of a dirk-bike track!

She looked quite pleased with herself, and rightly so!

That got us all excited! We hit "Racer Alley" and saw a medium sized, yellowy Garter Snake, who took off before we could get a picture. Let it be known that he was THE FIRST snake that we've seen this year that we haven't been able to CATCH, much less photograph. Now I won't be so nervous about keeping the perfect record intact.

Racer Alley didn't cough up any Racers again. The sun came out and it got positively HOT when we were on that wide open trail. It's one of Cutler's sneaky ways of kicking you ass!

We got to the other side of the tunnel and found something good... an Eastern Milk Snake! We named him Bitey!

This is what happens when you go way in for a close-up...

Andrea managed to hold him without getting bitten, though he bit himself once!

We are, of course, very happy to add Milk Snakes to the list of snake species that can be found at Cutler.

We continued through the forest for a while and found a few more herps.Like this Leadback...

Some Green Frogs (we heard them calling throughout much of the marshland)...

and even a mammilian friend... a Chipmunk!

Chipmunks were all over the place, constantly surprising us or fooling us with sounds in bushes.

Our last herp of the day was this nice pale American Toad.

So that's Cutler in a nutshell... various species that you have to work HARD for! This trip was roughly 3 1/2 hours and, despite fairly flat trails, Cutler really takes it out on you! We left exhausted, eaten alive by bugs and burning up, but we marked it off as a successful trip. Cutler still hasn't lived up to its potential for us but I guess anything short of a Racer encounter will leave us mildly disappointed.

There's always next time...

L.B.S. 5-29-2011

2011-06-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

This Sunday wasn't a planned herp day. We were still worn out from our huge day in Western Mass and we had a party to go to at night! Speaking of the party, we took some party stuff a block up the street to our friends, to drop it off.

Now, these good friends (who we'll call... umm... how about Kate and Snag!) have mentioned "little brown snakes" in their yard before, but I'd never seen one. Except for a flattened mummified snake... that was probably a Dekay's (aptly named that time...). We'd received calls from Kate... "little brown snake in yard", but said snake had moved on by the time we got there. Too bad, because Dekay's Snakes are high on our want-it list!

Well, they weren't home when we dropped by, so we contented ourselves by flipping rocks in their stone wall. All of a sudden Andrea yelled "Little Brown Snake"! She'd caught our first Dekay's Snake (now better known as Northern Browns) in our years of herping together!

This lil fella was surprisingly muscular for being so diminutive!

These little beauties are common in the area, but we'd never found one alive! 3 dead ones, but nothing alive! Now, thanks to some good friends letting us root around in their yard, we've added this species to our list! And I'm old school... I'm going to always call them Dekay's Snakes. Or the ol' L.B.S.

May 28th! All Out Toad ORGY in Windsor Mass!

2011-05-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

Get your wah-wah guitars out and play along to these horny devils! We've got a nasty, X-rated, adults only post this time!!

It all began innocently enough... we went to the Mass Sheep and Wool Fest in Cummington... oh... I see. Yes. There was some foreshadowing there...

We had planned on going to the Windsor State Forest after, like we had done a few times in the past. We had seen many herps there before... Garters, Efts, and always plenty of toads. We'd even planned on camping there one year, just to get some extra herping in, but it fell through. Being 3 hours away from home, this is always a special trip.

I'd said one the way "I hope nobody else is there"! I got my wish. It seems the campground and parking area had fallen victim to budget cuts last year and the place was abandoned. Oh well... we parked across the street and snuck in, unsure if we were really trespassing or not, but assuming we weren't.

We decided to herp quickly, just in case. I moved to a couple of palettes that were lying near some bushes and flipped the top one...3 Red Efts were under it!!

It was a warm day and they got pretty cantankerous pretty fast!

So, already we were happy!

While photographing the Efts, a Wood Frog jumped by... I caught him to photograph...

Andrea somehow saw and caught a teeny Spring Peeper!

We saw an American Toad, who acted like he was missing out on something... I wonder what it was?!

Most of the Redbacks we saw were quick in the warm weather, but these guys stayed still long enough for a pic...

(A lovely coppery guy!)

Down closer to the river (the Westfield River), I found a toad that was buzzing in my hand like a cell phone on vibrate! The sound that we'd heard and wondered what it was seemed to be toads!

Andrea said... "look! Frog Porn!" She was photographing a couple in amplexus! We were very excited to be able to photograph this amazing event!

I got nearer the water and saw another couple... and another!! There were dozens and dozens of toads doin' it! There were guys aggressively forcing their way into threesomes and foursomes! Legs and warts were flailing everywhere!! Let's just sit back and enjoy some pornography, shall we?

(Wrapped up in strings of toad eggs!)

(A four-stack!)

("What about me?")

Eggs galore!

*Whew*... I need a cigarette!

While Andrea was pervertedly photographing the toad porn, I moved down a bit (there were still copulating toads, but less after a waterfall), I flipped an underwater rock and found this Salamander larvae...

Then I found another Eft. 6 efts in a day??? Unheard of!

We decided to look around the abandoned campground before we took off and were rewarded with a lovely Two-Lined Salamander!

No reptiles, but 7 different kinds of amphibians! Boy Howdy, that was a good trip!

May 27th, 2011... After Work Special

2011-05-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

With the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, Andrea suspected that she'd be getting out of work early, so if she did, we were going to plan a late afternoon stroll through Hoar.

She did. So we did!

We pulled in at about 5PM. We realized that we'd never been there on a truly warm day, so this was new for us! Would it be too warm for sallies? Let's see!

Our first herp was a VERY active American Toad, who displayed an extremely spotty belly and enjoyed flailing around!

He soon settled and decided that hanging limply was his best defense!

Redbacks were at a minimum, as they often are when the temps get higher, and when we did see them, they had some good speed, making them difficult to photograph! This guy was a tad slower...

We got to one of our favorite parts of Hoar, a lovely pond/ stream, and were greeted by the sound of a detuned banjo string getting plucked... the Green Frogs were calling! There were quite a few!

(Feel free to use this pic for future Valentines cards!)

Then, cruising down the stream like the Hoar Ness Monster was a large Muskrat!! Very cool indeed!

There was a painted turtle mucking about under some duck weed, but he eluded our cameras! The bastard!

As we moved forward, we started wondering if we were going to see Hoar's signature herp... the Spotted Salamander...

We did! A pretty big guy, too!

Being warm, even the spotty was pretty active!

We added in a nice Leadback

and a small toad...

and headed home... very happy with our quick (hour and a half) excursion into nature. But it should be added... it was a buggy as fuck!

5-25-2011- Nature through the window

2011-05-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

Just as I was posting the last entry, I was hearing some lively bird chatter outside of my window. Our cat Gibson was all atwitter, too. I looked out and saw a fledgling Robin on a branch, with his head cocked skyward, looking at an adult Robin who was singing from a post some 10 feet above.

I do believe it was a flying lesson in the works. This lasted for roughly 15 minutes until something scared off the adult, leaving the youngster alone.

The fledgling tried spreading out his little wings, stretching them. He didn't have much in the way of tail feather. He hopped along the branch a bit. He flapped his "wings" and "flew" a few inches along the same branch.

Andrea and I were watching and HOPING that he was going to get the hang of it, as dusk was setting in quickly.

After 5 or 10 minutes... all of a sudden, he took off... possibly for the first time ever! After a slew of false starts, he flew, about 15 feet up into the tree, probably to his nest!

This drama was amazing to watch. We're so happy for him that he made it back before darkness! And before the next train went by!

Herpy Birthday! 5-21-2011

2011-05-25T15:42:00.001-07:00

The weather had sucked it BAD for a week... cold and rainy; not a ray of sun to be found. We had written off any hopes of herping over the weekend. My birthday was on Saturday and I've always wanted to catch a snake on my birthday, but the forecast was not on my side.

We went to an art exhibit with some good friends in the morning and were surprised by blue skies and... *gasp*... sun! So we made plans to spend the latter part of the afternoon in Allendale! (Because it's close and time was a concern.)

Walking home from the train station, Andrea showed me a Morning Dove nest that is always occupied by a parent. It still was!

We got home and changed and headed over to the woods. Just inside, we saw some caterpillars chowing down on a leaf.

Not 20 feet onto the trail, I saw Andrea scrambling and grabbing a handful of leaves... with a Garter Snake in it! Her first snake catch of 2011!

We put him down, but he still wanted to pose because he was so beautiful...

Further up the trail, I heard some rustling and found a chubby American Toad hopping along... our first of the year!

We got to a favorite part of the woods... a place with lots of old housing debris laying around and I saw this...

So I got to catch a snake on my birthday! He had some blood (?) on his mouth which makes me think he'd recently eaten. We handled him gently.

Excellent checkerboards on this guy!

Flipping also produced some Redbacks...

And a mouse!

At the pond, there were many turtles out basking, though very far away...

There were also some HUMUNGOUS Bullfrogs, including this bruiser!

Over near a spillway, we flipped and found our first Northern Two-Lined Salamander of the year!

I'm not sure he enjoyed being held like this, but it helped with the ID!

Andrea could see some red reflecting in the water in the distance and zoomed in to find this... a newly hoisted Painted Turtle butt!

We were having fun and good luck, so we took the long way out and managed to find the swampy area that we hadn't seen in a while. Because of all of the recent rain, it was very pondy! This Bullfrog was posing beautifully...

I was looking at other Bullfrogs and I heard a commotion at my feet. I looked down and there was a small Garter Snake striking at me repeatedly! It was pretty funny! I gave him every opportunity to connect, but he settled down once we started handling him...

He actually tried to poke his way underneath Andrea's watchstrap!

We were on a trail side flipping when another hiker came by and pointed out a Lady Slipper up off the trail. We hadn't seen it at all!

It's funny what you miss. We were zeroed in on herps and she spotted that flower at 30 paces!

We found one more Two-Lined on the way out...

I call that a pretty darn fun couple of hours! A great birthday was had!

Lucky Friday the 13th.

2011-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

Mid-May and the weather blows... literally at times. Cold and rainy and lots more on tap. The only good weather has been on Fridays which I have off at the moment, but Andrea does not and I will not herp without her.

Friday May 13th was another instance of it being nice enough to go out, but Andrea had jury duty instead of work. So I stayed in. And fell asleep. At 4 PM she called and said she was free so I woke up and hurried to pick her up. And we went to Allendale. A couple of hours in the evening is better than nothing.

So, it was in the low 60s, but surely there'd be some redbacks and maybe even a spotty!

Oddly enough, we flipped some wood from the fallen down house (which has been partially dispersed) and found a cool Garter Snake! So we photographed the holy hell out of him!

So, we'd found a snake late on a cool day! Anything else would be gravy!

The gravy included... a redback...

our first Painted Turtle of the year...

and some fine looking Bullfrogs!

It should be noted that last year, we saw no snakes at Allendale and we haven't seen turtles there since the first time we found the pond 2 years ago! So I would say in was a successful- and lucky- early evening walk on Friday the 13th. (We were only out for about 2 hrs, too... very quick for us.)

Patriots Day April 18th 2011... too cool?

2011-04-23T04:26:00.000-07:00

Low Sixties. Bleh. BUT, this gift holiday to the people of Boston is traditionally our first herping day of the year, so we wanted to get out... even though it wouldn't be the first.

We wanted to check out Boyden Refuge in Taunton to see how it fared the winter.

It was very cool... almost breath-seeing cool. We went through quickly at first. The weather was cool for us, but the redbacks were enjoying it.

If you ever got the feeling that Redbacks are the most common herp in our area, you'd be absolutely right!

It should be noted that the forest was very wet... vernal pools were plentiful and deep, popping up in places we'd never seen them before. We had to alter our usual trail. knowing that certain spots would probably be impassable.

This lovely olive Garter Snake made himself known to Andrea. He took a little bit of work to track down, but we got him to photograph pretty well!

His body was warm to the touch, so I guess he'd found a nice basking spot. Overall, the weather was warming up a bit.

Not far from him, we found a Geo Cache...

A few Redbacks later...

we found our first Green Frog of the year, hanging out in a vernal pool.

Heading back, I saw a flicker of movement and saw a snake tearing up an incline. I lunged and landed full-out on my stomach grabbing a fistful of leaves. Andrea said that there was a tail in my hand... I reached further ahead and had a Ribbon Snake!

Really living up to his name, this guy was pencil thin, but about 18 inches long, with a beautiful shade of copper-red mixed in with the black of his sides.

Not bad... 2 Ribbon Snakes already in 2011... we didn't see ANY all last year!

On the way out, I was flipping warm stones in the Fragrance Garden and was greeted by a very weird thing. A tiny, hovering thing with a long beak. Was it a tiny hummingbird? I'd never seen anything like it!

Turns out is was a Large Bee Fly:

New to me, though I guess they're very common! Moved like a hovercraft. Very cool.

Auf weidersehen!

April 10th, 2011... back in Mass.

2011-04-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Twas a Sunday with temps in the mid-60s. Not exactly a heatwave, but it was as warm as the week before in North Carolina, so we went to Ponkapoag. At least the redbacks should be out, maybe more.

We got to our favorite vernal pool, which I guess should just be called a tiny pond... it's usually there, even when it's been very dry. Since it is usually very Phibtastic, we looked for egg masses.

We found this one, which I think is a Pickerel Frog mass.

This was near it. It looks like Spotted Salamanders, but I've never seen them in that area of Ponk. Anyone?

Along the dam, we found our first snake of 2011, and imagine our surprise that it turned out to be a Ribbon Snake!

He crawled up Andrea's sleeve and was just a beauty in every respect!

So... snakes were up and about in Massachusetts! Good to know!

Further up the pond, there was a behemoth Snapping Turtle just under the water.

To make sure we weren't repeating ourselves from the week before (by photographing a dead turtle), I poked his shell with Andrea's walking stick. He retracted his back legs, so we knew he was OK, if a little cool.

Like golf? Nor do I, but I like animals that live around the course! Andrea looked down and saw this lovely yellowy Garter Snake partially hidden by leaves.

A very beautiful specimen!

We continued and did the full walk around the pond... ambitious for early April... before our herpin' legs were ready to go!

Hey, is it suspicious that we hadn't seen any Redbacks yet? Never fear!

First up was a Leadback, followed by many many Redbacks. We lost count! Let's just show some pics, shall we?

Leadback!!

Until next time... try to enjoy the daylight...

North Carolina Tart Poo... err... Part Two! 4-2-2011

2011-04-14T16:32:00.001-07:00

We slept in a bit but the wedding was at 11 AM, so we had to hustle once we got up. We took a walk to the gas station/ convenience store for a coffee and Diet Coke. OK... I bought 3 Diet Cokes. I am what I am! On the way back from the store, we saw another possible feral kitty...

While other people showered (cleanliness is for sissies), I went into the backyard to poke around. The stripey anole was still there, but nothing else was about. There was a great squawking in the air and I looked up and saw 5... no, 6... nope... 8... holy crap- there's a dozen birds of prey circling around up there!

Impossible to photograph, but memorable as hell!

So, we went and got my Mom hitched...

The happy couple disappeared shortly after the ceremony, so we changed (though I'd love to herp in a suit someday) and took a short drive to the Croatan National Forest... a place full of wonderfulness.

We were herping from the car, as there is a series of dirt eoads there. When we saw potential good habitat, we pulled over and poked around. It should be noted that the temp was in the mid 60s, but the wind was ripping.

Andrea saw some turtles basking on the bank of a creek so we pulled over and stealthily crept back to the spot. I only got a quick peek before they both slid into the water... nary a photo got taken. They were more than likely River Cooters. Discouraged, we looked around. I saw a shell! I alerted Andrea and we got some pics...

It posed quite well. We were happy. Then I got suspicious so I got a stick and poked it. It was dead. Oh well, judging from the size, it had a long life!

Finding animals proved problematic. We found a few piles of tar paper baking in the sun... perfect for snakes, but all I got as a couple of dozen red ant bites on my hands!

We found one place to pull off where there was a posted map and bathrooms. I dug under a piece of particle board and promptly had my ass handed to me by a medium sized skink! No blue tail, but fast as hell. I just couldn't get a hold of him to photograph, even though he gave me 4 tries!

We walked around the perimeter of the lot and lo and behold... a Green Anole! In the cool weather, he was hardly green... but check out the red and chocolate of this beauty!

I got him to relax and almost fall asleep in my hand!

On the next tree, another guy was jumping around! He gave me a sly look before jumping onto Andrea's coat!

We kept on walking and I heard Andrea exclaim that she'd found another Green Anole!

She put him down on a log and he seemed content to hang there for a while.

I found a mealworm and put it in front of him. Then I caught up with Andrea who had moved on.

On our way back past the log, the anole was still there, but he was licking his chops!! Mealworm lunch!

Then we saw some hopping and found a lovely Southern Toad.

Man... toads are so photogenic!

As he was our last herp of the trip, I'll leave you with a lovely portrait of what I'm sure will be the only Southern Toad of 2011!

North Carolina Part One: April 1st, 2011

2011-04-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

When planning our trip to North Carolina to marry my mom off, we tried to work in as much herping time as possible. We caught a 6:00 AM flight from Boston to Raleigh/ Durham and hoped that along our 2 1/2 hour drive to mom's house, we'd have some chances to look for critters.

Upon getting into NC, we realized that it was cooler than expected. After all, it was only 9 AM! So we tried to put some miles behind us. We passed many interesting spots... piles of tin, abandoned buildings and the like, but we didn't feel like trespassing and getting arrested, so we passed them by. After a couple of hours, we decided to hit a "rest stop" just to stretch and poke around. Besides, we had to pee!

While Andrea was still incarcerated in the lil' ladies' room, I started poking around the outside of the spacious rest area, about 10 miles outside of New Bern. I saw some movement in a pot of flowers... Green Anole! Luckily, though he was green, he was cool enough for me to nab him!

While walking him back to his flower pot, Andrea said, "We should keep an eye out on the building...". Prophetic. There was a larger Anole right there, still in her brown jammies!

Of course we had to take advantage of the 2 green anole photo op!

The smaller green guy was checking her out. She said her name was Nina Grohl.

We put them back and modeled the male (whose name was Buck Dharma) amongst his flowers.

Encouraged, we took a look around the grounds. We saw this massive wasp, whose wing span must have been over 3 inches!

But no more anoles, until we got back to Buck Dharma's pot. There were 3 or 4 running around that one, hiding down the sides when we approached...

Encouraged, we went on our way!

Upon reaching my mom's house, we had a little lunch, but peeked in her backyard while waiting... there was a stripey little green anole hanging out...

After eating, we were going to go to her husband-to-be's property to look around. He lives near a creek and swampland, so we had some good chances. Sadly, it was still fairly cool.

In a lot next to my mom's we found some pine-cones from the rare Vag Tree,

a purple finch (that was in the grass and I almost stepped on!),

and a possibly feral tuxedo cat!

So soon we piled into my mom's speed machine, I mean car, and she zooooomed us over to her intended's land. We met the man who was going to be related to us in less than 24 hours, and started herping his property!

First up was probably an Ornate Chorus frog, hiding on some plastic floaties.

Moving around more floaties, we uncovered a quartet of hylids!

Next up was a large (wolf?) spider!

With Jim(my mum's sweetie)'s permission, we started peeling back bark from some fallen pine trees. There were some brilliant green tiger beetles in there, which we neglected to photograph. Then we saw a flash of bright blue. A tiger bettle? Nope! A young 5-lined Skink!

He was squirmy as hell and I was afraid of him dropping his tail, but everything stayed cool...

We also found another chorus frog inside the bark...

After that, we were beat! (Hell, we got up at 3:45 AM!) We went home to rest up for the excitement of the next day!

March 18th... worth a shot...

2011-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

We both had the Friday off. It was a warm day. Naturally, after all of our errands were done, we both figured... let's give it a shot!

We were ready to go to Ponk!

Ponk was not ready for us yet, though.

Still, we had a lovely walk, with a temp in the 60s (but with a vicious wind). We looked at it as training for the upcoming months, getting our eyes and legs in shape.

This robin thought we were crazy.

Next stop... North Carolina!

March 12th 2011- Cabin Fever got the best of us.

2011-03-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

Since mid-December, I have been dreaming almost every night about getting back into the woods, dreaming of catching snakes and salamanders. It's no surprise that on the first warmISH day of the year, we got ourselves out and walking.

The week had ended with heavy rain so, in my stupid, innocent optimism, I figured that it might have woken up the salamanders. That Saturday, it was in the 50s so, we figured why the hell not?! Sho nuff was a beautiful day!

We headed to Hoar, our Salamander Haven. If anything would be up, it would be up there. While it wasn't exactly a successful trip in that regard, it was a fantastic two hours getting off of our asses and seeing some nature.

Well, of course the spring reveals many things, and this dead raccoon was our first animal...

But things picked up with signs of living animals... like raccoon tracks in the mud...

It looks like maybe a dog print right next to it...

Deer poop-

And a horfed up hair ball, perhaps an owl pellet!

There was some lovely Orange Jelly Fungus-

And the Skunk Cabbage was popping up all over!!

An interesting thing about Skunk Cabbage... it emits some heat when it's coming up, so it melts snow around it!

So where are the feckin' animals, beyotch?

Lighten up, yo... we had a few!

A male Mallard duck!

A hibernating bee! I flipped a log and there he was... I poked him and he nestled in deeper. Weird.

There was still some snow around, so we figured that we might be a bit early for any herps.

But lo and behold, one flipped log revealed a Redback Salamander! Our first herp of 2011!

To say that he was slow moving would be an understatement. In fact, we weren't even sure if he was alive! So, I put him back and hoped that he'd thaw out and live a productive salamander life. I went back a few minutes later to see if he'd moved and it looked like he'd started pointing himself back underground... very very slowly.

So, we're happy! We got to spend a couple of hours doing what we love most! And getting muddy-

I snapped this pic of myself for an amusing snot-dripping shot...

Little did I know that I had a passenger

A tick, who make it up and onto my neck in a minute or two, making us freak out and hurry home to strip off all of our clothes (and not in a good way)!

Ah, the joys of nature walking! Can't wait to get back out!

What's wrong with Avians?

2010-12-31T15:43:00.000-08:00

Twas a fine day in mid-November. There had already been a frost, so herps were out of the question. But what about their beaky, flappy and oh so airborne brethren?

We headed to Forest Hills Cemetery (honestly, hoping to see a turtle, but it wasn't to be).

We saw Hooded Mergansers! Cuter than shit, they are! I think it's 3 males and a female.

Andrea got amazingly close to a heron and got some great shots!

Then some guy and his brat came clomping up and Heron-boy took flight!

Geese were enjoying the Snapper-free environment!

We packed up our asses and went for a drive after that... to Winslow Farm! Here, we saw... shitloads of cats!

There were some odd looking wild ducks...

And I got cozy with a pot-belly pig.

I need to get out and herp again soon. But it's New Years eve right now, so my chances suck ass.

Last herp of 2010... Oct. 28th

2010-12-31T15:33:00.000-08:00

We were cat watching for our good friends... the wise and wonderful Kate and Snag (both adjectives apply to both friends...). They have mentioned snakes and salamanders in their yard, which is a 2 minute walk from our house.

It was getting dark, but the day was balmy... so we flipped a few rocks and... REDBACK!!

He quickly scurried off into the grass... leaving us with the memory of our LAST HERP OF 2010.

*sob*

October 23rd... Getting desperate...

2010-12-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

OK, 2010 has been a pretty crummy one for nature walks and herping. There was the house-buying thing, moving and a book in design taking up most of the summer months. Not to complain, but... it sucked! (OK... that's certainly a complaint... I'm sorry)

With the viable herping days winding down oh- so rapidly, we had a day of low-60s F temps, so we went to a new favorite place... a visit to the mostest Salamanderest place of all... Hoar!

It took a while, but we finally scored a Fistful of Redbacks, directed by Sergio Leone!

After we got our herpin' eyes adjusted, redbacks started popping up all over the place! Now that's a'what I'm-a talkin' about!

The autumnal colors were quite lovely... we tried to capture them on the digital camera with middling success...

Our worrying about not finding herps was put to rest by the abundance of Redbacks... they are hardy little fuckers!

Leadback!

There are at least 4 redbacks in this shot sharing their space with a slug...

Guess what else was at Hoar today... Pill Bugs!!!! Oh, and a Spotted!

It was cold enough for Andrea to wear her Bear Claws, but the Spotted Sally didn't mind!

Redbacks and leadbacks made themselves known again...

And then another Spotted!

Well, we were certainly satisfied... Sally-riffic! If these were our last herps of the year, then we went out with a bang! Thank you, Hoar!

Can Cutler cut it? Sept. 25th 2010

2010-10-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

With the herping year rumbling towards its end, we wanted to give Cutler Reservation another chance. (Remember earlier this year? Suckage...) It was a much cooler day (though still nearing 80) so we thought we might score a glimpse of those alleged black racers that live around there...

We headed in, enjoying the boardwalk and the repairs that it underwent this year.

There were giant green BEGINNING OF THE END-type grasshoppers all over, which was very nice... I haven't seen them since I was a kid! Sadly, every time I had a really good sized one, the camera pooped out on us.

We walked alongside the rocky hill that holds up the train tracks, which is where these racers supposedly hang out. No snakes, but evidence exists! A racer skin!

So, we went through the tunnel, which leads to the trails that lace through the rest of Cutler. Midway through this cool, dark place we saw our first herp... a fine (fat) figure of an American Toad!

I like the juxtaposition between the lovely natural toadiness of the animal and the eye-soreiness of the graffiti and litter. Hey, if it doesn't bother him, it shouldn't bother me, I guess...

On the other side of the tunnel, we did some flipping and started to find some Redbacks!

This one's a lead-back. Notice the Grasshopper Tar on my hands from an earlier catch.

At this point, Andrea's achilles tendonitis was flaring up badly so, despite our newly acquired luck, we had to turn back. Of course, we had to check out our toad-pal on the way back through the tunnel...

On the way back across the boardwalk, I grabbed a few smaller grass-hoppers to try to photograph, if the fucking camera would cooperate. It did.

(I even caught one on my snake stick!)

At the end of the boardwalk, a miracle happened. I saw a fine garter snake coiled off to the right. This is what he looked like!

He didn't bite (though he threatened) but he musked the bejesus out of me! Still, a good sized and beautiful Garter Snake.

Sad to think, as I write this on October 23rd, that he might be our last snake of 2010. A busy October and cool days have made it very hard to get back out. Hopefully today.

At any rate, Cutler is back in our good graces and will be a hike we take often in 2011.

THIS is why we love Ponkapoag!! Sept. 19th 2010

2010-10-08T15:01:00.001-07:00

Hot on the heels of a Spotty-centric Saturday, we headed for the hills... the Blue Hills. Ponkapoag, to be specific.

Our first herp sighting was just before the dam... a massive Bullfrog. With no size reference, it's tough to describe but this guy is a BRUISER!

A bit further on, Andrea spotted this smaller Bullfrog, decked out in his funkiest jammies.

A bit further down the dam, Andrea yelled out "Water"! A ran over (I was working the opposite side of the dam) and got there just as a black tail was slipping between some rocks. I grabbed it and held on, trying to coax the snake back. I could see a little noggin peeking out a few stones up and tried to clear some space but he backed up. We wrestled for about 3 minutes and I was decidedly losing the tug of war. I didn't want to damage a scale or anything so I freed him, with only this picture to show for it...

I had a little better luck further down the dam with this Garter Snake!

He was full of piss and vinegar (but not musk, as he'd sprayed me pretty well) and seemed to enjoy the taste of my finger!

I asked Andrea if she wanted to hold him and she said "nah- I'd rather get bitten by my own catch". Prophetic words indeed.

This youthful Painted Turtle was blending in nicely with his surroundings, but one little movement caught Andrea's eye and she got this shot!

This Green Frog was also enjoying the dam.

We decided to go the whole way around as Andrea's tendons were feeling OK and the day was lovely! So... we found our old reliable friends the Redback...

And the red squirrel...

(Check out this guy's racing stripe...)

A little further on, Andrea yelled out "Milk"! Man, she was having the luck today!
She pulled up this little beauty!

Remember how she'd rather get bitten by her own snake? Blurry pix, but hilarious!

Feisty yes, and such a beauty!

A little bit of flipping also turned up a lovely Ringneck snake!

We've been told that water snakes have been seen along the dock area so we gave it a closer inspection... nope, this wasn't a Water Snake...

(More like a Pickerel Frog!)

But these skins were under the dock so I believe the stories...

Then things got weird...

The pond was very low due to the dry weather that we'd been having. Therefore, there was plenty of "beach" to walk along. I was poking around looking for water snakes and Andrea squeaked... "Redback... walking"! Now, we see dozens of Redbacks on most of our nature walks, but they're always nestled under rocks and logs. This guy was walking tall along the beach!! Towards the water!

And he didn't stop when he got to the water! He took a dunk and swam a bit (undulating side to side, as one might expect) and came back to the shore!

Then, he disappeared into some wet leaves on the shore. Weird.

Walking back towards the car, I saw a garter near the trail. I pointed him out to Andrea, who didn't see him. I nudged him with my snake stick to show her and he didn't move. (I expected him to take off.) So I bent down and picked him up. He was feisty to a degree...

But I realized that only his front half was feisty and his back half lay limply in my hands...

He was digesting a meal so he wasn't so impaired that he couldn't hunt but his back 2/3rds were definitely just hanging there. I put him down to watch him crawl and sure enough, his back 2/3rds dragged behind...

Injured or not (there were no open wounds visible) he was an alert and good looking specimen (on the front at least!) and when we left him, he was eyeing a Pickerel Frog that had jumped within a few inches of his head.

Quite a day! I was nice to see a few different species of snakes for a change! On the final stretch of the walk, we heard a cooing in the bushes and saw this young 'un sitting there... Not sure what it is, but it's cute! (The esteemed Jef C. Taylor says what we gots here is a cat bird! Thanks Jef!)

Ponkapoag, sometimes I wonder why we bother walking on other trails... This one is just perfect!

Hoar gives us pleasure for FREE! Sept. 18th 2010

2010-09-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

When you stop to think about it, going on nature walks is a great way to save money! Most places are free! We get to look for herps, exercise and enjoy each others company while saving money! That's as good as it gets!

There's this place called Hoar Sanctuary nearby. They have a small pamphlet with a Spotted Salamander pictured above the information. That's good enough for us! (Plus, we like the name...)

So we found the place with a bit of trouble, but started our walk. There is a tennis court nearby and we could hear the folks playing as we descended into the woods. The habitat looked great, but it took a while before we found anything. (Except for this funnel web)

Animal wise, this long, tall sally was first. While not a spotty, it's a fine example of a Redback!

True to the pamphlet, this Spotted Salamander was found next!

What could be cuter than a spotty? How about this mini-redback?!

He even makes the modest diamond that I gave Andrea look impressive!

Was there anything there except for Sallies? Yeah! Howza 'bout Green Frogs?

But the sallies started to come hot and heavy, like this darker (shedding?), high walkin' Spotty!

Under-log space was at a premium...

Spotties kept getting biggah and biggah!

(That one guy was particularly photogenic...)

And... oh my... bigger still!

This last guy was the brute of the day!

So yeah... the pamphlet wasn't kidding. Hoar Sanctuary is sick with Spotties! It's a short trail... even with all of the flipping we did, we only spent about 2 hours there.

We'll definitely be paying a visit to this cheap Hoar again in the near future!

9/5/2010- Boyden- now with 33% more ass!

2010-09-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Apologies to those folks who do not want to see my ass (mostly... everyone). Two of my friends (oddly enough, heterosexual men)asked to see my butt again, so I will warn you... it'll be here.

Anyhoo- we got a really early start and got to Boyden at about 8:30 AM. The grass was still covered with dew and it was cool. That didn't help us find any snakes though! Pickerel frogs, however, were out and about!

Redbacks were around as well...

This poor guy was the first to go on my ass (area... admittedly rather high...)

Hey proceeded to crawl up and under my shirt, tickling the hell out of me!

We did eventually get lucky and find a lil' shoestring garter snake!

Stay tuned to the end to see the torture we put this guy through...

As they often are in Taunton, toads were well represented!

A pond that is usually there was all but dried up... so we walked through the muck and found lots of frogs, both pickerel and green...

And tons of snail eggs...

And even a leadback phase of the Redback!

In one beach area, there are always holes dug with turtle shells scattered around, leading me to believe that skunks or raccoons dig them up and eat them before the young chelonians have a chance to hatch. I was happy to reach into a moist hole (easy, now) and dig out empty shells... these guys hatched and were already gone- out in the world doing important turtle things!

It was also an avian-heavy day. There was a group of 4 hawks right overhead- 1 large and 3 medium ones circling above.

Geese and swans had taken over all of the good turtle basking spots!

That didn't seem to bother the two guys in the background here...

I barely got a shot of this beautiful Pearl Crescent Butterfly.

One spot in Boyden had become a girly magazine bonfire area. A few months ago, there just appeared in the middle of a trail, a huge pile of half burned magazines. Someone had disposed of their collection (or had it disposed of by a furious partner). At any rate, having sat there for a while in the rain and sun... the charred magazines had become pretty decent habitat! These ashy pickerels and redbacks are a testament to that!

So, all in all it was a pretty good day, though arriving so early didn't really give us any breaks.

OK- With apologies to Martha, my Mom and anyone else (i.e. everyone in the world...) here is Andrea bravely holding a garter snake where one just shouldn't hold one...

(Next time, I'll photoshop-shave my rear end better...)

9/4/2010 Allendale woods on short notice

2010-09-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

We hadn't planned on a hike. But we had to go to Home Depot. We pass by Allendale. It was only natural to stop by, even if only for a quickie! *hmmmmm*

Well, we had a pleasant enough walk, but it was late afternoon so we didn't have much time and the possibility of snakes was minimal. We made it to the pond and saw a heron hunting, probably having better luck finding herps than we were!

It took off and amazingly, Andrea got this shot... barely! (The camera was off and NOT at the ready!)

Once Señor Heron was gone, some frogs started coming back into sight. Well...at least this one Bullfrog did!

We also found a redback on the short (only an hour and a half) walk.

The wee fellow dropped his tail on me!

After shopping (and buying a dryer) we went over to the Dedham Animal Rescue League to play with cats. That's always fun. Every time I'm there, I like to walk the grounds to see the outdoor animals... horses, bunnies, pigs... and to flip stuff. It just LOOKS snakey!

Well... it was! I flipped some wood over near a bush and this young garter snake was coiled up underneath, resting on some gravel!

Quite a beauty he was and it was a great note to end on as we headed home for some dinner!

August 28th... where else?! Ponkapoag!

2010-09-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

When you really want to go on a nature walk, just go to Ponk. We did! Here's what we saw!

The Pickerel Frogs were again out in force. There should have been a ton of snakes around feasting on these but we didn't see any here!

This little Painted Turtle thought he was being sly, but we found him!

We were joined on the dam by a couple of ducks...

Check out this shot that Andrea took... what a great pic!! Check out her eye!

Redbacks were abundant and since it was warm, they were crazy fast! We only caught a few!

Airborne!

Andrea made the find of the day with this young Spotted Salamander!

Oh... did I mention toads?

Then we ganged up on a Spring Peeper!

These cormorants watched as we limped our way back to the car... we've been so out of practice and injured. We needed rest after this 5 hour hike!

I have to be honest... we saw two garter snakes and they both handed me my ass. One was cunning enough to lead me into vines covered with prickers and I still have scars to show for it... damn dirty squamates!

July 31st- Back to Boyden

2010-09-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Despite foot pain and working overtime trying to get books to printers, we found the time and painkillers to take a trek to Taunton! Getting there about an hour later than planned, we still had a blast!

On such a beautiful day, it was only natural to find a fine young garter snake first!

The grass was alive with movement and we couldn't find the source. Finally, this fella jumped into the open...

Tiny pickerel frogs were all over the place! 'Twas the season to be froggy.

Small frogs or not, this youngster couldn't even think about such a meal yet...

So small, but such a beauty! Almost like a granite design... here's how he looked crawling on concrete!

He was to be our last snake of the day but the pickerels were abundant...

As were ridiculously small toads!

Redbacks were also around, despite the fairly warm day...

Painted turtles were also enjoying the sun, as they usually do!

Now that's a helluva stack!

One spot on the trail that has never yielded ANYTHING was full of young green frogs this day!

This guy has to grow into his head...

Andrea's crude penis graffiti collection grew by one more with this gem...

And in the parking lot as we were leaving, this bunny came to bid us farewell.

A fine day of herping, penising and bunnying!

July 11th... because we can

2010-09-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

We stopped by Allendale Farms to look at veggies and maybe grab some cheese. It's fresh, it's good, and it's right across the street from our beloved Allendale woods! You never know... there might be a snake amidst the tomato plants!

What we never noticed was the pond out back! We strolled over and enjoyed the beauty of a heretofore unknown pond! And it was full of frogs!

Bullfrogs and bullfrog tadpoles were all over! In all sizes!

If only all of our shopping trips could be this rewarding!

Eat Me, Walden Pond! July 10th, 2010

2010-08-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

OK... it's taken me forever to write this but it'll be worth it.

Our vacation was just about over and we needed to go to Walden Pond to swim a bit and befriend some garter snakes and ducks. The weather was still oppressively hot so a dunk into the pond would do us some good!

We left very early and pulled up to the Walden Pond lot at 8:15 AM... surely enough time to secure a good spot along the trail!

DENIED!!!

It was full and they weren't letting people in until after 11!!! Those Jimmy Buffet loving, nature sucking, Thoreau-ly disgusting SCUMBAGS!!!!!! We were furious!!! So we drove around the area.

From the road (no clue where we were...) we saw a trail map and a small parking lot. We pulled in. Some kindly hikers informed us that we were at Mount Misery in Linclon Mass. Sounded like a good place to end our mounting misery! Assured that there were ponds and a river, we bug-sprayed down and approached the trails. Yep- right away we saw an American Toad!

OK- I'm not going to go step by step because this place was FILTHY with frogs and toads! Bullfrogs, Green frogs, Wood frogs and American toads by the truckload! Take a look at these leggy lads!

Take a gander at this little anuran oddity- only one eye and, despite his size, still a pretty big (black) tail... Thank you, pollution!

Oh... and there were some sallys too...

Despite this, we still wanted to hop into some water (like this guy was going to do...)

So we hit the road for Ponk... where we knew we could at least stick our feet in...

We got to Ponkapoag in the mid-afternoon and went backwards, which is to say we went in the opposite direction of the dam. Figuring snakes would be well hidden from the heat, we just wanted to dunk ourselves!

We got over towards the camp area and flipped a few things. Some camper said he'd seen some water snakes around the dock area. So, I waded in and took a look around under the dock. Of course, the power hungry lifeguard yelled at me, saying if I hadn't paid my $2 in advance, no swimming for me. I was going to argue and tell her to fuck off but... what was the point.

We made our way towards a more private spot. Flipping revealed... a snake!! I decided to take a closer look...

Just as I thought... a beautiful garter snake!

I got musked a bit (and bit a bit) so when we got to our spot on the water, I cleaned off.

We waded into the pond (for FREE!!! Hahaha!) and I layed down and let the cool water wash over me. We lay in the shallow water, enjoying the refreshing coolness. Tiny sunfish were swimming up close to me and nibbling on the bubbles that were on my arms and legs. It tickled and it was very cute. Then one enterprising young sunfish BIT MY NIPPLE!! Youch! That startled the hell out of me! Nice chompers on that lil' fella!

After we dried off, Andrea noticed that we'd had company... a young garter snake was resting nearby. We got closer to take a picture and she bolted. She came back... then took off again.

She came back a third time and I figured I'd grab her so we could get a shot. I went around and into the water to get her from that side. When I grabbed her, she musked but I held her vent in the water! I won that one!

Then she went house. What a tenacious little girl! She was biting me, the air, my forehead... anything she could get! We think she was gravid, and maybe being a bit temperamental. She seemed like a good candidate for the nose-bite pic I've been hoping to get this year, but no dice...

She did make for one great photo-op... me biting a snake while it bites me!

At any rate, we let her go... she'd won the biting contest fair and square. Little did we know that my ass kicking by a 16" snake was witnessed by a shitload of Canadian geese (who tried to look nonchalant when I said "Whatta you lookin' at?"

This red squirrel also witnessed my defeat.

So, cooled off and with my dignity still intact, we, like the others who had enjoyed the day, headed for the car after a good day's hike.

Back to Ponkapoag- July 8th 2010

2010-07-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

After two days of working on the new house, we NEEDED to get back to nature!! We had to hang around in the morning to wait for our new washing machine to get delivered, but planned to get out after. After all... we're on vacation and this is what we wanted to do!

The washer was delivered fairly late, but we are, as always, ready to find cute animals! So even though it was after 3PM... off we went!

Of course, the heatwave was still flaming on. We doubted we'd have any snake sightings but figured that maybe when the sun was setting we'd get lucky.

We got to Ponk at about 3:30PM and hit the trails. Salamanders were still active, though incredibly hard to photograph for some reason!

Earthworms were dancing around... Crazy Worms we call 'em!

Once we got to the dam area, frogs started being really easy to find! Like this mammoth Bullfrog!

And his younger brother...

While walking the dam, I saw a strange sight... a Painted Turtle just relaxing in the grass. She looked a little something like this...

Right next to her was this young Green Frog:

We put the turtle back down and she proceeded to charm us!

Snakes might have been in short supply this day but the Avian world was well accounted for! Here's a Redwinged Blackbird gaping in the heat...

In the distance, a Cormorant was enjoying the pond...

The only other hiker on the dam was this Rock Dove (OK... pigeon. Note the tag on his foot)

This family of Canadian Geese was grazing and the two adults hissed when we tried to use the path!

We'd planned to go all the way around the pond, but Andrea has a bone-spur on her foot and it was hurting badly. We doubled back at the halfway mark (to avoid tougher trails) but still saw some amazing animals on the way back!

Andrea spotted a real rarity- a crawfish walking on dry land!

This good-sized gal had eggs all over her belly.

This young Painted Turtle was trying to catch the last rays of sunlight...

Andrea got a nice shot of this Red Squirrel, a species that seems almost as prevalent here as the Grey Squirrels!

Our last animal of the day was a Leopard Frog, who was just hanging out in the path, fearless. Andrea got this photo with NO ZOOM... just got all up in his grill!

Foot pain, late start and heat aside, this was a great day and a welcome return to Ponkapoag Pond! Plus, we got to wash our dirty clothes in a new washer when we got home!

My Kingdom for a Redback- July 5th, 2010

2010-07-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

Heatwave continued... no rain for weeks... hey! Let's go Herpin'!

We'd quickly checked out Cutler Park Reservation in Needham earlier in the year and deemed it worthy of our Herpin' time. A fellow hiker had mentioned some "black snakes, 6 feet long, that shook their tails and stood their ground"! Always in the mood for a Racer, we decided to try to get there early, before the 90+ degree weather kicked in.

By 9:30, it was roasting. We valiantly carried on, checking to and fro but, except for an unidentified frog who jumped into some cool bushes, we saw very little of interest.

This bunny was hot (and sexy).

But really, this deer pretty much spelled out how we would be feeling before too long.

Knowing that there was a pond on the far end of the reservation, we stupidly went for it. We were melting hot and didn't see so much as a redback. Nothing. We found plenty of superb habitat, some great flippin' wood, miles of excellent trails... but no animals stupid enough to be out.

After a few hours and a couple of miles, we found the pond... an oasis amidst the dust bowl that we'd just clunked through. We saw our herp of the day... a lone painted turtle off in the distance baking itself in the sun.

This beetle was so hot, he just left his skin behind and found shelter! (OK... it's some kind of molt...)

This place NEEDS RAIN!! The earth was cracked and dusty, the marshland dry and empty, and the animals conspicuously absent. We'll try again in September.

This hobby can get you. Some days, it doesn't matter how tenacious you are or how hard you try. Perseverance just doesn't always pay off. This was one of those nature walks that felt like an endurance test. Tired, thirsty, sweaty and beaten, we trudged back to the car. Better luck next time.

Then we got ice cream!!!

Indeerpendence Day July 4th- 2010

2010-07-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

We realized that we had accidentally started a sort of tradition by going to the Blue Hills (non-Ponkapoag) on the Fourth of July. (Here is last years entry) So, why not go again this year?

We were a bit baked from the day before and the heatwave was still cooking away but we are nothing if not intrepid warriors. Well, maybe a bit daft as well.

We got there at 11ish and had pretty much written off snakes again as it was hot hot HOT already! Whatever. This is our thing, so we headed into the woods.

The polar opposite the day before, we double-teamed a hapless garter snake while still within sight of the car. This fellow slid under a log I had just lifted so... well... I lifted it again!

A fine figure of a young checkerboarded garter snake! He promptly musked the fuck out of me. Whatever! We took pictures and enjoyed his cuteness. We released him and he went right back under the log, looking something like this.

Pumped up, we carried on. It was to be a Wood Froggeriffic day for sure. We'd not seen any yet this year but we found a fine specimen right away.

More soon followed.

Redbacks were also present, of course! This little guy was all crooked for some reason...

There was this guy as well, who I'm trying to decide whether or not it's a leadback or a 4-Toed.

While trying to find a pond that was very fruitful last year, a fellow hiker said to be on the lookout for deer... he'd just seen a few.

Hey- he was right. These tow good sized females were frolicking in the woods, stopping only to stare at us while we snapped these (poor) pictures!

Pretty exciting, I say!

We found that pond but due to the heat and lack of rain lately, it was dry. I did see a snake scoot out of sight and I couldn't find him. But we did find out why he was there... tons of mini newborn Wood Frogs!

If yesterday was the day of the Toad, then surely this was Wood Frog Sunday!

Satisfied, we started back to the car. We'd been in for about 3 1/2 hours and were getting weary. Andrea decided to check a cool drainage ditch next to the road for potential redbacks or frogs. Guess what she found?

A way handsome garter snake! (Who musked the fuck out of her!!)

OK... this was a good day! We went up to the "zoo" area (some local avian and turtle species, as well as a swell duck pond). There are some wild painted and snapping turtles in the duck pond. The painteds were out sunning and swimming.

But in the end, we were hot and tired and the captive river otter had the best idea.

We went home to find a hollow log to sack out in.

Tiny Toads Terrorize Taunton! 7-3-2010

2010-07-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Back in the field again!!

After a month and a half of moving, painting, building and other strenuous, non-herping things, we finally got back into the wild on Saturday, July 3rd! Place of choice? Boyden Refuge!

The first thing that we wanted to do in Taunton was check out the new permanent Flea Market that we'd found out about. It was OK (needs to grow a bit) but on the grounds outside, there was a good amount of AC (artificial cover... not air conditioning, which was needed as it was in the mid-90s!). We went to explore and flip a bit and this big ol' Toad hopped by!

This was a sure sign of good things to come!

We got to Boyden at about 11:30AM. It was already very hot and we were thinking that it might be a big too hot for snakes... maybe anything! Still, we trekked on!

Under logs, where the soil was still cool and moist, Redbacks were still around! These guys are so hardy- nothing seems to bother them! Ahh, for the life of a salamander!

Leadback? Or something else?

But where were the snakes?

It was then that the toads invaded! Bigger ones and tiny ones! Toads all over the damn place!

Toaderiffic!

At one point, we were flipping some tiles and Andrea saw a small garter snake go slithering off... she made a valiant attempt, but the wee (under 10 incher) squamate had escaped. Ah well... next time!

This Stag Beetle reared up and warned us not to fuck with it...

Andrea needed to cool down from the heat and stepped into the pond for a spell.

This ladybug had the same idea...

We carried on and it looked as though we were on the right track... we saw a skin!

Flipping the log NEXT to this one revealed the owner of that skin! We had him trapped! We could finally catch a snake and photograph it!! First one in over a month!! So we flipped the log...

And he went right past me. I chased him and he eluded me, getting lost in some bushes near the pond.

I was beside myself! The mournful Charlie Brown Failure Theme played in my head...

About the only thing that could cheer me up after that humiliation would be a stack of Painted Turtles! Luckily, one was nearby!

We went to the waterfall and there was an extraordinarily large Seagull there enjoying a dip!

Our walk back to the car, beaten, sweaty and tired, was fairly uneventful, except when walking past a part of the woods we have been calling Toad Hollow for the past couple of years. There, in the hollow of a tree in Toad Hollow... was a toad!

Somehow, that made it all worth it!

OK, so we didn't manage any snakes in 5 1/2 hours. BUT, we finally got back into the woods and had a terrific toad day! I'm satisfied!

May 16th- This one had to hold us!

2010-07-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of our fine day at Breakheart Reservation, we'd thought about relaxing the following day. But knowing that we'd be moving for the next month, we stepped up and took our nature walk! Fatigue be damned!!

We got a late start, but pulled into the Ponkapoag parking lot by 11:30.

A favorite pond yielded some anuran pals... this Bullfrog

and a leopard frog!

Our first snake was this beautiful Northern Water Snake... the friendliest guy ever! He didn't even attempt to bite- a real water snake rarity!

This photo needs the Scooby-doo sound effect "Brmmph?"

So mellow was he, Andrea asked to hold her first water snake!

There were many other Water Snakes out that day, including the return of the Ponk Ness Monster!

While I was running all over looking for more snakes, Andrea was being charmed by this female red-winged blackbird!

Redback Salamanders were well accounted for as well. But we have so many pictures of redbacks that we wanted to try something different. So I put him on my face. Believe me... this tickles something FIERCE!!!!

Crying Salamander tears.

Andrea took this shot of a duck perching on some rocks. He flew off as she snapped and made it a much better picture!!

Our last animal was a little Ringneck Snake, our first of the year.
He was a beautiful specimen.

OK, as I write this it's July 1st. We haven't been in the field since May 16th. But now we are all moved and (more or less) settled so LOOK OUT! We're going to be in the woods more than in our new house! We've been missing wild animals so badly! We were tempted to take Sunny the Ball Python outside and hide her under a rock just so we can flip it!

Vacation starts in one day... guess what we'll be doing!!!