"Would You Risk Death To See A Snapling?" 9-27-2019

This was an actual question posed to me from Andrea and, naturally, we both agreed... YES! Of course, as I belatedly write this, I've had pneumonia for 9 days so it's not as funny as it was then. Well, maybe moreso.

We'd both taken the sunny Friday of September 27th off and as we drove deep into "critical" EEE territory, we discussed our plans, which was to spray down heavily and stick to sunny trails of a few well known places. As much as we love the vernal pools of Bristol County, we didn't want to be completely stupid. We'd be quick but not so quick as to miss any animals, like this pretty Pickerel at our first spot.


Approaching the garden, I saw a small Garter slide away and go under a log. We extricated him for this portrait.


This plump Pickerel greeted us as we entered the garden.


The stones in the garden were getting hit by the sun but by this time, it was a paper-wasp's world and I wasn't going to bother them. No sirree, thank you very much.



Walking out towards the river, we were treated to another, larger Garter, hiding just a bit off-path.


The warm sun brought the local Painters up to bask. The Local Painters Union.




It was time to go through the woods to get to the sunny, sandy soil where turtles had nested. Would we survive our walk through this dangerous, buggy and gorgeous terrain?


This American Toad cheered us on.


The sunny sandy trails were filled with signs of predated turtle nests and a few successful ones. Andrea is way better at spotting successful nests than most people in the world. One spot had been very popular and loads of egg shrapnel and big holes were everywhere. Somehow, Andrea managed to see this tiny thing among the wreckage.

No clue if this little Snapling was alive, but we put him into a container with a little water and hid it in the shade while we moved on.

I saw the next one and it wasn't any more promising. A Snapling about 3 feet from the water, but it had one massive eye that was pus-filled. We moved him into the very edge of the water as I believe he still had a little bit of life. Good luck, wee one.

Yeah, we'd wanted to see baby turtles but this wasn't as joy-inducing as we'd hoped.

We didn't spend too much more time out there. We got to our turn around point and then... turned around. On the way back, we checked on our soaking friend. It was indeed alive, though probably not yet ready to be above ground. He still had some egg sac on his plastron.

So we put him close to the water, but in a divot in the sand, then covered the divot with a layer of leaves. Kinda like he was still in the nest, but not quite. I have no idea how those two will do but we did what we thought we could do to help.

From there, we drove out to another turtle spot. We passed the police station who had a nice, flashing "EEE Critical" sign reminding us of our impending doom. Unruffled, we went on the the lakes just inside Plymouth County.  A baby Chain Pickerel (thank you, Andrew!) greeted us upon arrival.


At the lake's edge, there wasn't much chance of 'skeeters so I hopped in to walk along the slippery rocks and sand. What could possibly go wrong?


Well, naysayers, it paid off and bobbing in the surf was this little Stinkpot... a baby Musk!


I walked to put him back and right there, probably stirred up by the same surf, was a real, honest-to-goodness healthy Snapling!


We went across the street to the adjoining body of water and I saw this little guy.

He zoomed back into the muck.


No more turtles on that side but this new Green Frog hopped into my line of sight.


Before heading out, we looked at a different part of the first lake and Andrea saw this acorn-top surfin' the waves.


Last animal before the highway... this massive Crawdad... easily 6". I couldn't ID him.


It appears that we didn't contract EEE that day. That's nice. We also had a very rewarding day off from work. I mean, Andrea literally lives for baby turtles. It felt good to see her so happy.