Man, am I behind! But then, it's not like we've been getting out a lot because the weather has been kinda shitty. Once Autumn hit, WHAM... it started to be cold. And the ever-present rain hasn't helped much.
One good day was Friday, October 6th. It was sunny and in the 60s, but Andrea was working. But since she was working at home, I made her take a lunchtime hike at our local spot. We didn't know if the snakes were starting to return to their hibernaculums yet or not. Well, to be honest, we still don't know but we had a pretty fine amphibian half-hour! In fact, we flipped our first Blue-Spotted Salamander on the year!
Next up was another Bluie, but this was a bigger one and might have more Jeff in it than most. I get really confused with the whole Blue-spotted/ Jefferson complex thing and we and our dear son Matt the Moist found what was likely a unisexual specimen that was large and extremely Jeff-like. This one was large and the background color greyer than usual. A unisexual one? I dunno.
We finally declared our Redback drought officially over. While some fine folks laugh at our love of these usually common salamanders, I still find them to be woodland jewels. 
A Redback on the straight and narrow.
The first Leadback we'd seen in some time.
One last peek under a trashcan in the cemetery before heading home... BLOOOOOO!
Not a bad half hour!
The next day, Saturday was crappy or we had obligations or some such shit but that Sunday, we were invited to a friend's party on the Cape. I scoped out a bunch of spots to poke around in the area of his house but while driving down Route 3, we thought, "It's sunny. Maybe the Hogs are out today..." and we pulled off in Plymouth County to hike our damned spot. We knew we were tossing the dice and might come up super short like we'd been doing there much of the year, but so what?
Well, we didn't do the full multi-area hiking. We passed up the bogs (bye frogs!) and took the heartbreak trail of the year first. What could possibly go wrong? Well, plenty, but we did find a Ringneck shoestring sleeping under some bark, so that was cool.
He were teeny. Here he is with a penny.
The hike didn't produce anything else until we were almost back to the car and we saw one Painted Turtle grasping at the few sunrays.
I should mention that it wasn't nearly as warm as it looked. There was a frigid wind keeping everything in the 50s.
We only hit one more spot before giving up, the flipping spot. We did not go towards the vernal, we just flipped up top and got two Redbacks for our efforts.
It could have been worse. Who knows if we'd have seen anything at my proposed Cape spots? At any rate, we went down and enjoyed some time with friends, but it was chilly, lemme tell ya!
So, with the season definitely closing quickly, we know we're running out of chances. On Saturday the 14th, it wasn't terrible out... it was intermittently sunny but cool. There wasn't a lot of wind, though, so we figured we'd check on the local dens. I know, pretty soon that will be our only choice, but hey- it wasn't even 60° out, I didn't want to invest too much effort.
We went up to Robles' den area and scored a Redback right away. Good sign.
Next up, we were very surprised... almost as surprised as him, to see an American Toad hopping up the densite hill. Usually, we consider toads to be the first to disappear in the fall but this large fella was still up. A very welcome sight. Beautiful animal!
The shoestring Garter hadn't disappeared completely, it turned out.
I didn't want to wreck his cavern so I dug into the mulchy soil about 6" away from him and eventually bothered him enough to come out. He musked me to show me the error of my ways.
The dens weren't hoppin'. Whether it was just too cold to see any animals or they weren't there yet is not known. I suspect the latter. We checked four different den-sites and only had that one shoestring present. We did see a few more Redbacks, though. (Cue the yawning for certain cool people.)
We decided to walk to the adjoining park and maybe hit the river to see if any foolish Painted Turtles were trying to bask on this shady day. (Turns out there was an annular solar eclipse that day which might account for some of the overcastedness...) This (I think) Green Frog was buried in the muck of the low water under a bridge. Beavers had stopped the flow pretty well.
Well, we got to the river and yes, Virginia, there was one Painted Turtle trying to get some eclipse rays.
Walking back, we stayed up on the paved path where it was a bit warmer. There are loads of rocks there but many are very heavy and I'm not half the flipper I used to be. I tried some low-hanging fruit but there weren't any snakes out.
Until there was.
One flip got me a handful of squamate cuteness. A yearling Garter, a this year's model and a much appreciated DeKay's! A beautiful Autumn bouquet!
Since we didn't see many others this year, here's a Deke solo shot. Gorgeous.
Heading back, we sat on a bench near the bridge. Andrea had to take a Mom-Call so I went over to the water. The big Green was gone but this skinny, dark Green was there wishing there was more water! Damn, beavers! (Hah!)
Heading back, we decided to check the Valley again. This Blue was under the same log that the Redback and Blue-spotted were under in the picture above. I'm pretty sure it's the same laterale. Must be his crib.
Our last sight on this unexpectedly good day was another Spotted Salamander... definitely this year's metamorph.
So, not a bad day for one that we didn't even plan on walking. Eight species in our home county on a cool October day. I'll take it. That makes 16 October species of reptile and amphibian in Massachusetts. This upcoming weekend has been forecast to be warm and sunny... maybe even in he 70s. We'd love to have one (or two) more big days to hold us over the winter.
Who knows. 2023 has been crap but maybe we can still make up for it.
Who knows. 2023 has been crap but maybe we can still make up for it.
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