It's All Done with Smoke and Turtles. 7-15 and 16, 2026

Our big plan for the day was to go to the Brimfield Antique Show but hit the Magic Tree in Worcester County first. No problem, we've done that many times before and since this was a Wednesday (Andrea's vacation) we knew traffic would not be the problem. Like it usually is. It wasn't bad and with eating on the road, we pulled in to the state forest a little before 8:30 AM. It was a strange drive in, however, because due to wildfires in Canada, there was a cast over the sky and car bumpers had orange light glowing on them.

We first headed to a flipping spot and the first flip had a gorgeous female Garter under it that we watched slowly crawl away without a photo. Oops... not quite awake yet. We soon made up for it with another Garter under a piece of wood. Andrea procured it for an in-hand shot.

Interestingly, when we put it down, it crawled away a little and then had an orange glow on it's head. I couldn't really capture it with the camera, though you can see it a bit on the needles in this shot.

We headed toward the Magic Tree in a moment of instant gratification, we saw a large Rat Snake (first of year) crawling toward it. It zipped inside and was never seen again.

The tree is barely standing. It is now completely split in half and the sides are slipping from each other, leaving a 1 1/2 foot space at the top. Plenty of Rat skins are hanging inside, so they're still using it. The above shot perhaps shows the orange pallor to the sky a bit better than the Garter shots.

As do these shots of completely covered (with duckweed) Painted Turtles basking in the smoky sunlight.

A Pickerel had earlier handed me my ass and avoided my camera but the second one we saw tried to but I was still able to get a voucher shot in a bush.

Up towards the front where the water was less cluttered with duckweed, a much cleaner Painter was basking.

Some bright red Staghorn Sumac was living at the edge of the water.

Before leaving (after about two hours of sweaty, hard-to-breathe hiking) we went back to where the pretty Garter had gone unphotographed in the morning. I was flipping through a tarp and found a small Garter with about 3" of skin left to shed. I picked him up and slid the remaining skin down like a stocking, and imagined a little "pop" as the last tip of tail came free. And that little guy was a badass!

I gave him to Andrea to look at and he made a meal of her!

Things bode well for his future!

Guess who was also in the tarp and proceeded to hand me my ass again...

We went to Brimfield, grateful in a way, for the smoke because it kept the temps under 90°. But we didn't last long, even though we'd found some amazing things. It dawned on us that we might not be able to do both on the same day anymore. That's OK... we had a great time at both places and saw some nice critters.

The next day, Thursday, had a much clearer sky and so we planned a local walk. Because of the energy we used up the day before, we got a late start and that probably hurt our chances. It was pretty hot when we left the house. We decided to stop by "the school" on the way to our destination. No Water Snakes were seen and the water was very low. The adjoining pond had plenty of Painted Turtles up basking in the much cleaner air.

The place is looking pretty litter-filled again and I'm planning another clean-up. Perhaps this week.

Our destination was very hot and no animals were up. We cut it fairly short and the only photo I took was of this Hollow Joe-pye Weed.

But that's not a bad way to start Andrea's vacation! Exercise, animals and nature. The way we like it.

Another New Spot 7-12-2026

It was time to recon another new (to us) spot that isn't too far away in these days of high gas prices. I researched a place about 40 minutes away that is kind of close to a favorite park that we always do well at. We got to this one (in Norfolk County) just as it opened at 9 AM. The sounds of Purple Martins filled our ears and I started taking long distance photos as they are still a "need-it". All of the photos were crap.

We went in and started along the shady trails. It was very interesting because the water and duckweed came right up to the trail. It made it feel very Evergladesey. Much to our delight, we could see a Water Snake through the brush.

There's the noggin!

We got out to a boardwalk, clearly the real draw of this place. Some Painted Turtles were up basking.

We saw this Snapper at the surface, foraging for snacks. We watched it for quite some time, chomping lily pads and skimming the surface. A pretty big turtle, that one.

Not far away was this smaller specimen who made itself known by snapping at something. This made for double the pleasure and we watched these two for a good twenty minutes.

A guy came by and said he saw a massive Snapper further out. We pointed out our big guy and he said "oh, mine is twice that size." Always one-upping. What is it with people? We moved on before he started talking about his nether-regions.

Andrea found a gorgeous Garter Snake who either just had a snack or has little ones in her belly.

We got back onto the trail and enjoyed a lovely walk. We sat on a bench overlooking the pond with a gaggle of Canada Geese right behind us, preening. I looked out and saw a dark strip in the water, zoomed out and got this shot.

It appears to be 27 Painted Turtles, my personal best on the year so far.

Another gathering of picta.

As wonderful as the whole hiking area was, that boardwalk was the best and we went back. This solo Painter greeted us.

We went back to where Andrea had seen the Garter earlier and she'd been joined by a smaller guy, also with something in its belly though definitely not babies. They made a "T".

With my ears always open, I heard someone say the S-word... they had a Snapper nearby. We went over to look and there was an absolute monolith of a Snapper there. It looked to be twice the size of our earlier big guy. Perhaps braggart-man had been telling the truth! This is the best shot I got but it might have been the largest Snapping Turtle I've ever seen.

This much smaller one was foraging.

This little Painter had a nice sunny spot to itself.

We finally moved on and went through a sunny field filled with flowers. There was a large patch of Black-eyed Susans peppered with Daisy fleabane.

After a short rest, we went across the street where more trails went around another pond. Unfortunately, it wasn't as critter-filled as the other side. This solo Painter is the only animal shot I got in over two miles of hiking.

This fungus (either Cerrena unicolor or Trichaptum biforme, thank you Jef for the suggestion of the latter) looked very cool covering a tree stump.

Back to the parking lot, ready to leave, I finally got my shot of #68, Purple Martins. Lots of 'em.

So, it's safe to say that Andrea has a new favorite spot, Snapper-happy as she is. We'll certainly be heading back to this place before too long. It feels good to say two for two on new nature-walk places this month!

Tiny Consolations. 7-11-2026

After another few days of 90°+ days, the weekend was supposed to cool off and stay in the 80s. We decided to waste a Saturday and head to Plymouth County and continue our search for a "used to be easy" Hognose Snake. They have been so tough for us of late... ever since I said aloud a few years ago, "You know, they're pretty easy to find." I'm a tool. So why not go to place where we often fail altogether to look for a snake that we rarely see these days in a month notoriously bad for snakes! What could possibly go wrong? We got there a little after 8 AM.

Well, spoiler alert: in over six miles of hiking, we came up snakeless. But it's not all dire news. First off, the bog was full of charming Bullfrogs, all posing as if I was a real nature photographer.

The biting flies were buzzing me like mad but I carried on. They didn't seem to swarm Andrea like they did me. The bog had one beautiful surprise for us.. a very blue Green Frog hopped and alerted us. I took a dozen pictures but never really captured it's color. This is the closest I got, with the light setting set lower than usual. Gorgeous. Blue lips... must have been cold.

Some good news... TINY TOADS!! Andrea spotted them and we started to see quite a few. All toads have been tougher to see here and this is a good sign. This guy is probably a Fowler's.

A big, fat Green and another Bull closed out this spot.

The next stop in this park was historically our best Hog path but it turned up goose eggs this time, again. BUT, down by the (slightly refreshed from rain) low-water pond, Andrea noticed that there was a ton of sundews! Spatulate-leaved Sundew, to be exact.

It's always nice to see carnivorous plants! It made me wonder if they could catch a tiny toad, because they were present here as well.

We went through a field to get to another good path and saw a lot of Yellow Wild Indigo.

I'm diggin' the plants this year.

More tinies were seen as we went up the hill. It's hard to tell for certain because the tinies aren't fully formed yet but this guy appeared to be an American Toad as his belly was very speckled.

Another probable American climbed this log just as I was about to peek under the bark!

Lowbush Blueberries are starting to ripen and we snacked on them as we found ones that were ready.

We lamented about the diminishing toad populations last time we were here and were very happy to see these two gorgeous non-tiny Fowler's hopping off the path as we approached. Some much-needed good news.

We tried to find another path to check out, couldn't find it and headed over to the station in hope of seeing some turtles. I'd missed two Painters at the bog stop and needed some revenge. Some  boaters had just launched and scared everything in so we figured we'd come back later. But lo and behold, this bruiser of a Red-belly had been nonplussed as the boat went by.

It didn't take long until I got my Painted revenge when a large one climbed up for some sun.

We sat out on the peninsula for quite a while, just enjoying the breeze and watching the water. A Monarch Butterfly came by and was on some Purple loosestrife that was in front of us.

You can see his proboscis in this shot!

Not a good plant to have around, though it is pretty.

Last up, we watched a Phoebe gathering stuff to take to a nest filled with hungry yellow beaks and feathery tufts.

We tried to find another new spot for Recon but found it full of loud, sweaty humanity when we got there and decided to pass and leave. But, it was great to see some toads, old and new and of both local species this time around. We'll be back next month for another fruitless search for Hoggies. We just don't know when we've been licked. Or maybe we like being licked. Who knows.