Milky Memorial Day. 5-26-2025

There was sun!! There was warmth! What better place to celebrate than a walk around our favorite pond in Norfolk County! We got a slightly later start than hoped for (waking up was difficult) but we got there around 10:30 AM and found parking pretty easily so we hit the trail. We saw nothing until we got to the dam. But then we saw plenty. Like Spotted Turtles. Lots of them.

We finally got to see our LIVE Water Snake after yesterday's heartbreak.

We were extremely surprised to see a Milk lounging in the sun in a totally new spot for them. Big one, too. Easily a yard long.

Another Water Snake, right next to a family that had no idea that it was there. It became a teaching snake.

I couldn't get a shot of all of the Spotteds, but here is one more. Hunting, it was.

Hey, what about that! A Painted Turtle! The only one on the day!

We went for a bit without seeing many critters for a while but I was eager to get to the Hobo Camp anyway, in hopes of our First of Year Ringneck. It took some doing and a handful of musk but we found one! A perfect one at that!

A Six-spotted Tiger Beetle. They're pretty gorgeous.

Andrea found our one and only Redback on the day. Believe me, I worked my ass off on Ringneck Hill for more of them and more Ringers but struck out.

I was looking by the stream for Two-lines and upset a pair of Pickerel Frogs who jetted off into the unknown. I was basically on my last rock and asked Andrea if she'd flipped it, being a known Garter rock. She hadn't. I informed her that it was now also a known Milk rock.

Since when do we have that kind of luck. This Milk also became a teaching snake.

We joked about putting a moratorium on Milks. Funny enough, we only needed a Garter for a 4-snake species day. Surely we'd see one at the swimming area. Nope... another Milk.

We were talking with the person in charge of camps for a while and her young son was snake-happy. We decided to be quiet and let that hidden Milk sleep but I did see a Garter on the crawl and grabbed it for the kid to gently hold for a minute. He was pretty good with it.

Check out that scar! Snakes are tenacious lil things!

I got my revenge on Pickerels... I flipped one next to a campsite.

On the way back to the car, I couldn't resist looking for a Two-lined in another stream area. It was easy this time.

9th species on the day!

We, of course, were hoping for a 10 species day, something we rarely get in Massachusetts. Well, we didn't get another but we're not going to scoff at a four snake species day. And what's with 5 Milks in 2 days? We feel pretty satisfied with how the week finally played out after being stuck in the house for a few days.