Eleven Species on an October Day. 10-1-2023

 Up and out early, we were. It was going to scrape 70° this day, with sun even, so we headed to a favorite spot in Plymouth County. The place where Andrea broke her ankle in April. All "looking for Wood Frogs" would be done with severe caution. We got there and decided to hit those very same woods first. Near my "Wood Frog" spot, I found some Redbacks under a tire. Off to an excellent start


Andrea found a few as well.

We're still not sure why we haven't been seeing so many lately, but it should be noted that these woods were full of them and we saw no Crazy Worms.

Of course, we always do a quick sweep for Box Turtles since we saw one here in 2020. Well, tenacity paid off with this, our first Box in two years.

After comparing shell-markings, we have determined that this is the same specimen that we saw 3 years ago. So, is there a population here or is this the Lonesome George of Plymouth County? We shall continue to search the area.

Up on the sunny trails, we walked along the bogs but saw nothing except one Painter diving into the drink and a huge Bullfrog that startled us in the grass, but no pictures were acquired. Then Andrea saw this Pickerel in the sandy path.

The sun was warming the path so small black squiggles started inching on to it from the grass. Three dark, young Water Snakes in a row.

This Spotted Turtle was doing his best Water Snake impression.

A cluster of baby Bullheads.

A Water Snake periscoping.

Finally got the camera on a Painted Turtle.

Classic Bullfrog face.

Painted glory.

Another Pickerel, trying to hide.

It's always a treat to see a Snapper on land. This guy was small-dinner-plate sized and took umbrage with our walking near him.

Another nice Pickerel, this time with some gorgeous copper colors.

Down on Painter Island.

Another Bull doin' its thing.

Obviously, Pickerels were plentiful. This chubby guy was the biggest on the day.

A short stack of Painted Turtles.

Nerodia face. This guy was toughing out a windy patch.

The main pond was an October vision of beauty. I love late in the season when every Painted Turtle on the planet knows what is coming and grab as much autumn sun as possible!

^^^ Just what the hell is going on on the far left there?!

We watched this Blinded Sphinx caterpillar hustle across the sand as we sat and rested.

We had to get back up and move before we started to look like this sleepy Painter.

Some more Painters catching some rays.

Didn't realize it in the field but that guy on the left is a Red-belly.

We hadn't done a turtle run in a long time but a black rock in the distance was crossing the trail, so we both did our best and got to this smallish Snapper before he got to the grass.

Andrea was in heaven.

This was a distant Painter in the field. Again, it's a Red-belly. Shitty shot, but a cool turtle, so there you go.

An American Copper gave us a colorful thrill.

This Water Snake almost got away with no photo but I grabbed him. I haven't handled too many snakes in a while so it felt good in my hands, even though I got a bite on the knuckle and a mild musking.

Having seen me handle another, this Nerodia sat still for a photo. It didn't want any filthy human hands on its beautiful body.

An even copperier Pickerel!

A pointy headed Water Snake.

A Snapper in the water. What a concept!

Submitted for your approval... some more Painted Turtles.

Another species! A Green Frog. It was actually the 10th, but we thought it was #9 at the time.

One more small Painter for the road.

Last, but no way near least, a chubby American Toad under a rock. He might be dug in for the year's end already.

So, we thought we'd had 10 species, but it was really 11! Double digits at any time in Massachusetts is a very good day. This was perhaps our best day on the year, alongside our Ponk trip with our friend Justin.

Not many days left. And we likely will not be doing second season sea turtle walks this year with the trouble our feet and ankles have been giving us.

Ending the Summer that Never Was. Sept. 15th and 17th

I thought Andrea was still on half-day Fridays. Nope. So my plans of an after work hike vanished into thin air. But she said "why not go visit the turtles on my lunch break?" So that's what we did. We were warned of a massive storm coming Saturday (the next day) and figured we'd be inside then.

It seems the turtles were wise to the upcoming turmoil because we didn't see any basking and only a few noggins were popping up at all. We did see a Snapper... Whitey?... but he blew us off. This Painted Turtle was the first one I got my camera on.

This GBH looks like I usually feel.

On the far side of the pond, we finally saw a couple of basking Painters. No Red-ears... weird.

The uncooperative Snappers remained uncooperative. Got this one eventually...

The next day, it did storm a little but it was much less that predicted. But with the rain and cooler temps, we decided to take a quick local hike on Sunday in Norfolk County. We chose a trail that had potential for four First-of-Years... Coppers, Racers, Marbleds and one other that we'd forgotten about until we saw it.

Spotted Salamander metamorphs were the Salamander du jour!

It was then that we flipped a First-of-Year... hard to believe that it took until September but that is indicative of 2023 for us. This is the FOY Red-spotted Newt of any phase... a Red Eft.

Handsome fella, too.

The log next to the Eft, the very next flip, was our FOY Marbled.

They were definitely a target so we were pretty happy.

This Green Frog made his presence known by hopping into the drink in front of me.

Another new Spotted!

This is NOT a new Spotted Sal!

We hunted around the rocks and lower area around the Coppertop spot but respected the rule (that we've heard tell about) about not going near the densite. We did a pretty thorough search at low and medium points, but came up empty for all snakes. But we can't feel bad... we gave it our best effort and we had seen a lot of nice salamanders.

This scary bat-monster face in a log mirrors how our feet/ankles were feeling after a while.

One complaint... we saw no Redbacks. What I used to call the most common land vertebrae in the area has become very tough to see with any regularity. This is my worry for 2023. Last year it was the absence of Fowler's Toads at Myles Standish. They are plentiful this year. Hopefully, our beloved Plethodons will be abundant again soon.