Nah, probably not, but this wasn't the worst day, despite my being overly tired. We went to Bristol County to a place that has been ruined by humans but we figured that it being after Labor Day, campers would be gone. Well... not completely.
How tired was I? After driving 30+ miles and hitting the trail, I realized I had on two different shoes.
Oh well... I wasn't about to go back to the car to put on my spares, so onward we went.
Our first sight was a small Green Frog, hopping through the grass. We were very surprised to see that it wasn't a Pickerel!
Now that is a Pickerel. A big, fat Pickerel.
Next up, we flipped a board and zingo,,, our first Milk since June 12th. Nice!
Does this mean we've broken the seal on snakes?
No... this was our only one on the day. But it was out 5th snake species in 24 hours!
Heading towards the possible Snapling area, we saw a couple of small Fowler's hopping along the trail.
The sandy nesting area showed us plenty of predation but no hatchling turtles. Looking out to the pond, we noted (once again) that the water level was low. Mud flats prevailed. Still, I managed to startle a half dozen Painters into the drink. There was a blob out in the water... I zoomed in. Bully for me!
Unfortunately, I missed a new Bull laying on a lily-pad who still had a couple inches of tail.
Some more resilient Painters were basking in the distance.
We continued along the "beach" area, scouring for niblets that might need a hand. No baby turtles. I did see this Pickerel in the woods and I'm quite happy with the photo.
Andrea found another wee Fowler's. We shall call him Sandy.
We got to the middle pond, a spot that used to be so damn good, but has been turned into a human swimming cesspool. Not many folks were there (mercifully) but the water level was too low for me to look for Musks along the unoccupied edge. I did get a little satisfaction with this new Bull with some tail still sprouting.
I saw a Painter head in the same area, so turtles still exist there.
The heat was getting to Andrea so she took a stroll into the cool water.
Before heading around the pond, I shot a couple more young Bulls. They're so cute and they were all over.
One thing that has really pissed me off about them opening this back up for human entertainment is that it was a good spot for Red-bellied Cooters, still an endangered species in Massachusetts. We haven't seen more than a couple since the re-do. This day, even Painters were tough to find in this pond. Eventually, I found a chorus line in the distance...
And this guy had a branch to his own bad self.
There was plenty of muck at the edges of the pond on the far end. That is where I could sometimes find Musks. No sooner had I said to Andrea, "keep an eye on the muck" then we saw this...
Much to our surprise, it was a Red-belly hatchling. I guess that, even with human interruption, the Redbells managed to make some babies after all. Nature wins out. Oddly enough, this is our second Red-belly hatchling on the year. On the month, even. Weird and wonderful.
We were heading back by now. Another spot we stopped at to rest for a bit was just stupid with baby Bullfrogs. We had a dozen in our eyelines at one point, more were everywhere. What fun it is to see them. How great it is that Bulls had such a successful year, even with the drought.
We walked through the woods on the way back, hoping for some more snakes, but we saw none. We did, however, see one Redback. After the salamander drought that we'd had, this is a very welcome sight.
And so it was... we left, got cold drinks, and headed home. Satisfied.
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