Exes, Spots and Coppertops. 9-14-2019

I had a gig that Saturday night so we had to stay nearby. Luckily, our dear friend Teá wanted to hook up with us to go search for Massachusetts Copperheads, a pursuit that wouldn't take us too far away. We asked Ryan to join us, too, and made plans for about 11:30 AM on a sunny morning.

Unfortunately, Teá got stranded on the Cape so it was just the three of us. We beat Ryan there and headed in slowly, knowing that we'd only potentially see salamanders and he is a bonafide trophy herper and wouldn't care. Sure enough, our first animal was a gorgeous burgundy-backed Redback.


We were also on the lookout for Marbled Salamanders so seeing a sal first thing was encouraging. But would Ambystoma be up today? In a word... yes. These small, metamorpoh Spotteds were certainly up.

Ryan showed up around here and I showed him the pic of the Redback and he yawned. Tough crowd.

Not only were Spotted Salamanders up, but they were plentiful! All were about the same size and all probably recently came on land from the same vernal pool.




Andrea and I flipped these next two simultaneously! Simultaneous maculatum.



We decided to break things up with a pretty Wood Frog.


I flipped over a log and saw nothing underneath it... until I looked in the log. This crevice had a lot of action in it! 4 species. There may even be more than one Spotted in there... the leg on the back of the visible one doesn't make sense.


Another pretty Redback. Ryan may have yawned again, I do not recall.


Next up was a nice Peeper, sportin' a mighty fine X.


Ryan flipped this Leadback and neither of us noticed the Redback in the corner until it bolted away.


Andrea found this chubby Spotted Salamander, the only one we encountered that wasn't This Year's Model.


After looking around the lower areas pretty closely, we started our ascent up the hill. I doubt Coppers are in their dens yet but surely they're starting to move that way. We spaced ourselves out as we went up and Ryan nailed it... he yelled "Copper" and sure enough, there was a gorgeous specimen stretching out between some rocks.

Mine and Andrea's first Massachusetts Copper in a couple of years.


The weather seemed perfect; slightly overcast and in the low 70s. We continued our hunt. Luckily, Ryan again earned his keep by finding the next (and only other) Copper, resting in a crevice. He was also the only one smart enough to remember his light. (Mine was resting comfortably on the back seat of my car.) This shot was lit by flashlight and I think it's pretty cool.


We all continued to search for a while but came up empty. Except for Ryan, again. He'd seen and photographed a Racer but despite it being pretty chill, it was long gone by the time we dragged our geriatric asses up to see it. I did manage another Peeper, though, this time in perfect Spider-Man pose.


The only other animal we saw (and surely this was just icing on the cake) was a super-clumsy American Toad.

Hey, I call it clumsy but it damn near outwitted me anyway. I was lucky to get this shot.

So, that was a fun and lucky (and quick) trip. We missed Teá but it was nice to get out in the field with Ryan again. I kid him a lot but he's a good friend and a great herper. Our show went well that night and my bandmates were pleased that I didn't get envenomated or fall and break any bones that morning. Win win.