Every year, we enjoy seeing the Barn Swallows in and around their nests. An easy #65, Barn Swallow.
At the water's edge, I peeked in and saw these two water Snakes cuddling in the warm shallows. I felt bad because Andrea couldn't get down there.
I pointed the snakes out to a young family and one of the kids paid me back with a Green Frog that I hadn't seen from my (taller) vantage point.
Turtles were proving to be tough. I finally got a distant Painter, basking in solitude.
Proceeding up the path, we saw a stick moving across the path ahead of us. Of course, it was a Garter, so I ran/ pushed Andrea up and procured the Garter for a shot.
Another young family had seen us and eventually another pair of hikers came by so this poor Garter was in six different sets of hands before crawling off on his way. I got musked but otherwise, he was a good show specimen.
We got to the waterfall area and Andrea did her best walking with crutches, putting a little bit of pressure on her bad foot. She did remarkably well. While she rested a bit, I got another Painter shot.
On the way back, an Oriole was teasing me but I finally nailed #66, a Baltimore Oriole.
Andrea did a lot more walking. This was the first time she had tried so much. Before heading up the gravelly path to the car, we saw one more economy sized Bullfrog.
Of course, we had to cut off 2/3rds of our usual route at this place but we saw some nice critters and Andrea really did a good job using her foot. Yay.
The next day, Sunday the 28th, we took a rare trip into Boston proper. Our friend Jef had asked us to come along on his Urban Nature Walk, a monthly hike that he arranges. He is an amazing naturalist and he usually gets a pretty good turn out. This month's walk was in the shadow of Fenway Park in Boston, seven acres of gardens that house the only lizard found in Massachusetts: the Italian Wall Lizard.
The lizards have been here since at least 2016 and have survived our shitty winters by digging into the mulch at the gardens. It is always a treat to see that they survived another year up here, their Northernmost spot. (There are many other populations in the US...) Unfortunately, Jef couldn't be with us (we love you, Jef!) but a bunch of us carried on with the lizard safari in his name.
And yes, we saw them fairly quickly.
A lot of brush had been cleared away and gave a pretty good view of the Charles River from the lizard gardens. Despite the fencing that is up, we could see some Painted Turtles basking.
A bunch of the group decided to check out further up (down?) river and between us, Andrea and I decided to join them, partly pushing in the chair and partly with her "on foot". It was worth it because we saw more turtles. Here are three Red-ears and an unidentified small one. They were pretty far away so this is the best I could do.
Don't cage me in!
I saw some shell-shine way off in the distance and tried for a shot. Hot damn- a three-headed Painted Turtle!
A handful of us stood on the bank of the river amongst the goose-poop because we'd all seen a Snapper head come up at one point. We could see his shadow under the water and we waited there for a ridiculously long time in hopes of getting a shot and to add another species to make Jef proud. After a good 20 minutes, I got this, which is shitty, but it's all we have.
I started to second guess myself when I uploaded it, thinking it looked a bit like a Red-ear, too. I put it to some friends in a turtle ID group and they unanimously said Snapper. After my nap, I was back in Camp Snapper, too. So... YAY!
Not far from the Snapper (we think there was actually about three of them teasing us), this Painter was getting his bask on.
Right around here, our group disbanded. What a lovely time we'd had! That is a wonderful bunch of people. Andrea and I rolled/ hobbled back through the gardens in hopes of another lizard or two. Seek and ye shall find.
Make that two fun days in a row! We got home mid-afternoon and enjoyed some relaxing and planned the next day.
That next day was Memorial Day, Monday the 29th. I wanted to see some Musk Turtles so I picked a couple of spots out in Bristol and Plymouth Counties. We got to our Bristol County spot pretty early and took a look at the Fragrance Garden. Pretty quickly, we got a stripe-less Garter!
Sweet!
Nearby, there was an in-the-blue garter waking up and catching some rays.
There were no turtles up basking yet, Musk or otherwise, so we went down the trail with the chair. It wasn't as easy as I was hoping but we did OK. Eventually, I flipped a Redback, the first one we've seen since Andrea's accident! It was a wee one, roughly 3/4 of an inch long.
Andrea hoofed it through a sandy part so we could get to a super nice sit-down spot. It's a tranquil area overlooking the river. Much to our surprise, a massive female Water Snake was enjoying the spot, too!
This was really exciting for us because we've been coming to this park for over 15 years and this is only the third Water Snake we've seen here. Being on a river, you'd think it would be filthy with them but no... they're tough to see for some reason.
We went on a bit further but the soil was sandy and roots were tripping the chair, so we turned back. I checked the turtle basking spot before we left and a solo Painter was enjoying a bask.
We headed out, taking one last look around. Somehow, from out of nowhere, a large Painted Turtle popped out in one of the spillways and swam away. I barely got the shot but I'm pretty happy with what I did get.
And that's that. Our Memorial Day weekend hikes. No Musks, but Andrea did a great job hobbling along and we've really been getting our $50 worth out of that wheelchair. Nine species over the weekend despite our being compromised. I'll take it.
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