The temps have remained low during the night lately and we're just not sure what is up and what isn't up yet. Well, it was going to be warmish (high 50s/ low 60s) and sunny on Saturday, so we chose a spot that had been put on the backburner for the last few weeks. Bristol County, here we come.
We got there late morning and enjoyed the beauty surrounding us, but saw no animals right away. The smells were quite delightful, too.
We were well into the hike by the time we saw a distant and impossible to photograph Painted Turtle. See what I mean?
Andrea's eagle-eye finally found us a gorgeous Garter Snake.
We snuck back to the far end of a vernal pool and saw a few critters... I saw a Green Frog on the edge.
Andrea flipped a nice pair of Redbacks.
Back to the river, there were some more difficult Painters up.
Andrea flipped a tiny Redback, made even smaller by the partial tail!
This puddle full of Mosquito Larvae was pretty cool.
We came across a second Garter eventually. This matched our entire Garter count for April. 2021 has not been so good yet. Another beautiful specimen!
Out on the river, we spied a true pile of Painted Turtles. So this is where they were all hangin' out! Still, not easy to get a good photo of.
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And that's all we could muster here. 2021 continues to be pretty slow. It has remained chilly and cloudy. We did go over to another spot but the only reptile-like animal we saw was this:
The next day was kind of a bonus day... it was cool again (high 50s) but sunny. We went to a close by spot in Norfolk County to look around for a couple of hours. Right away, Andrea spied a large, female Garter scurrying under the boardwalk. Photographing her under there was a chore, so I brought her up. Sorry about the musky shot here.
Later on, another pretty Garter scooted into the base of a tree... I was lucky to get this shot.
This now doubles our April Garter count.
Out on the Alley, we had good news and bad news. The good... Northern Water Snakes were out. Andrea saw this large gal just off-trail (and another small something that slithered out of sight at our approach).
Another large female was resting on the other side of the path.
This Big E Smalls was spilling out of the rocks... perhaps her first time out this Spring. These were our first Water Snakes since March 27th when we saw just one.
So, that's the good news.
The bad news is, we noticed some trimming had been going on again and the further in we got, we worse the decimation was. Can this area just get left the fuck alone? Evidently, the train company is responsible. The place was just starting to recover from their destruction from five years ago and subsequent annihilation from Xfinity more recently.
A beloved piece of carpet was still present and a couple of Redbacks were unphased by "progress".
It's sad that such beautiful habitat must always get cleaned up and humanized. There is a lot of beauty here that really needs to be allowed to flourish.
To end on a light note, we were watching a bunch of Yellow Warblers flitting about and I was trying like hell to get a shot as they are a "need-it" on the year. Finally, a flash of yellow went up to perch for a shot and Whammo... this brilliant male Goldfinch pretty much stuck his tongue out at me.
The old avian switcheroo!
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