We'd originally planned to head to Bristol County to check on a few places to look for Musk Turtles but a friend said one of the places (that has become overly human-friendly in the past two years) has become even worse so we just said screw it... let's go to Plymouth. It was in the low 60s and cloudy and we knew not what we'd see, but we hoped for some Fowler's Toads. Though we were tired, we pushed on and got about 6 miles of hiking in.
We got there in the late morning and started flipping debris and logs. We got a few Redbacks for our efforts.
We checked out "our" vernal pool, which was still huge and flooding the man-children's ATV path. Undeterred, many tiny tadpoles were swimming about. Fowler's? Maybe.
This small frog (Bull? So hard to tell) was the only resident with legs that we saw.
The next stop was the bogs. Instant gratification... this plump Bullfrog greeted us.
A couple more Bullies...
I am shit an getting shots of birds in flight but this one was hovering a bit so I got it. I couldn't ID what kind of hawk it was when I got home but my pal Bob said it's a juvenile Bald Eagle. Nice! #79.
This frog wants badly to be a Green. Sort of a dorsolateral ridge. Looks like a Bull to me, though. Maybe that's a flap of fat. I have some, too.
Our next stop was a trail where you practically have to kick the toads out of your way. Guess what. No toads. You can't say we didn't work hard for them, but we wound up with zero toads. This trail got us a short stack of Painters, though.
And a bright, small Redback.
Right around here, we needed to get some sustenance so we went outside the park and got drinks and ice-cream. On the way back, I pulled up to some trash and pulled this beautiful Ringneck out of a tarp.
Andrea stayed in the car, finishing her ice cream. I delivered the snake to her to view.
Some more bogs on the way back to the park... a true, bonafide Green.
This Bullfrog was in the same bit o' bog.
Back to the park we were low on energy but decided to check out the main turtle spot because the sun had forced its way out. We were rewarded with a magnificent sight... Red-bellies a'plenty.
The far log had two Painters followed by four Redbells.
This guy we called Platter... that's a huge turtle. Gorgeous.
This teeny Greeny was in the plants at the pond's edge.
One more Redback for the road...
This distant Painted chorus line is pretty hilarious and amazing... check out the one guy about 15 feet higher than the others!
So, that was our second day in a row out and about. We didn't kill it but we did OK and got our steps in together, all while seeing animals. I'm not gonna kick about that.
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