April and the Unwanted Son. 4-3 and 4-4-2021

 We were very excited for a visit from Matt, the son we never wanted, and his girlfriend Ariana. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't super great during their visit. It was in the low 50s and sunny, but that's not particularly great for our needs. But hopefully it would be good enough to see a Blanding's Turtle, a species he doesn't get down in his neck of the woods. We met at a spot in Middlesex County.

It was pretty brisk and we weren't sure how much we'd see, but it was good to see the kiddos. A few Painters were up testing the warmth of the day.

We were searching around a vernal that we suspect is used for Blanding's hibernation (which was still frozen the last time we were here) when I heard my unwanted son yell that he'd spied one. I ran back and sure enough, there was a Blanding's sunning in the leaves.

Mission accomplished.

We carried on the rest of the way and encountered plenty of Painted Turtles up.

My dear, beloved, though unwanted, son flipped a couple of Redbacks who proceeded to outsmart me as I tried to photograph them. I almost got a shot of this one:

As is often the case (no complaints!), Painters were the name of the game.

We finally stumbled across a Garter Snake who was trying to not be seen.

Andrea looks thrilled to watch an award-winning photographer doin' his thing.

One more pretty Painter...

Almost to the end, Andrea found our first Eft of the year... how she saw this squishy little bugger, I'll never know!

So that was what we saw, but it was more about hanging with the son we never wanted and Ariana than it was about getting a high species count. Ariana is sweet and charming and makes him happy, so she's aces with me! We should be seeing them on their own turf next month. I can't wait!

The next day, the temps were supposed to be roughly the same. We planned on visiting a place that was destroyed a couple of years ago in favor of making it more human friendly. We figured "who would go on Easter"? Turns out, a fuck-load of humans wanted to sully our hike.

We started out trying to avoid people and the paths we took got us a few Redbacks.

Check out the life under this log... a Redback, a Sow Bug and a millipede!

A few distant Painters were warming up, but it was cloudier and cooler than we'd expected.

This was a good Redback flip but the sun spoiled my picture... that one is a big, gorgeous Goldtop.

Not too many herps were up but I got a fish shot for a change... a Chained Pickerel (thanks, Mike)!

I don't know how many times I said "who do I need to blow to see a frog?" but I said it a lot. A few more distant Painters were all we could see.

Another thing I frequently say is "Thank goodness for Redbacks and Painters". I said it again. I know, it's still very early and a lot of things aren't out yet. But just for the fact that we saw more dog shit bags than animals is a little disappointing. But yes, the year is young and maybe we'd jumped the gun. Again.

We went over to another turtle spot afterwards and saw no turtles, but the Herring were running and that was amazing to watch for a while.