Friday Fun! May 17th, 2024

We had planned on going to Brimfield, the massive antique Mart that happens 3 times a year in Central Massachusetts. It turns out, it isn't far from the place in Worcester County that has (had?) The Magic Tree... a place where you can see the extremely rare (in this state) Rat Snake. Last year, we'd noted the rapid deterioration of the tree, a favorite Rat Snake hang-out and we went all of 2023 without seeing that species. Would our luck change this year?

With antiques also on our mind, we left early so we could look around the park before heading into Brimfield.. We got there by 10:30 AM and headed straight to the tree. Mercifully, it was still standing but you could see right through it. If I was in charge, which I surely am not, I'd have put a metal band right around the split trunk, or maybe a massive zip-tie. But it's still there, at least. We checked the trees around it and the shady spots but came up Ratless.

Moving on, we went into a field and saw our first animal, a mini American Toad. A good start.

Andrea called me back to a spot I'd walked past... evidently, I'd missed this gorgeous Garter Snake! First one in May!

We decided to go flip some stuff. This park has a lot of flipping due to dead picnic tables and such. It was doing this where we got of First of Year Ringneck!

It wouldn't be Spring in New  England without a Redback!


We curved up to look through an empty campsite where we'd seen a Rat Snake before. Not this time, but I asked if Andrea had looked under the bark of a fallen tree. She said no. I peered under it and found this Ringer.

This Redback was also under there... I told him to look out!

We went down to a pond that is very full this year. With the sun beaming down, there were dozens of Painted Turtles up sunning themselves. Here are a few of them.

There were a few Bullfrogs sitting on logs, too. Some were big enough to photograph from 30 feet above! Like this guy.

We stayed there for a bit, just watching the turtles enjoy the day when a Water Snake went splashing into the water from the shore. That drew our attention to the tangle that it had just retreated from...

It was a veritable cluster-fuck!

It was Noon and we had to get moving but decided to take one last peek at the Tree, since we don't get out this way too often. This time, we got lucky! A medium sized Black Rat Snake was warming up at the very top of the Tree!

Score one for the tenacious! First in two years.

We decided to look around a little bit more and after 15 minutes, it was time to really go but I wanted to see if the Rat had moved and maybe I could get a headshot. Nope. In 15 minutes, he had moved on completely. Timing certainly is everything. This American Goldfinch (#37) judged us.

So that was a productive hour and a half! While driving out of the park, a massive Turkey Vulture was flying low and swooped over our car. That was pretty cool, too. Onward to Brimfield, where we didn't score much junk, but we had fun. But eight species in a half hour... four of them snakes, made this a very good day indeed.