Mother's Day Milks 5-13-2012 Cutler

After that little 45 minute tease from the night before, we were very ready to do a full on herp hike! We'd planned ahead to do either Ponk or Cutler, and Cutler won. (We're trying to see Racers while they're still "in season"!)

Two humongous crows greeted us when we parked. We thought one might have been a raven, it was so large, but I don't think so. This smaller guy is all crow!


Well, the bad news first. Once we hit Racer Alley, I almost immediately had a small/ medium Black Racer poke his head up out of some grass at me, then take off like a jet. OK... there was at least one snake about today. Andrea asked if I could recall ever seeing any snake that was NOT a Racer along this part of the path. I couldn't.

Within minutes, a bright yellow-striped Garter slithered out of sight. That answered the question, but didn't help our photo-safari!

Then Andrea saw a Milk Snake! Nope, that one got away too... no photos. We started commenting about how much we suck. Within the past 24 hours, we were unable to photograph a Water Snake, a Racer, a Garter and a Milk. Yep- we sucked.

Then, I saw some rusty saddles among the grass... I lunged...


First Eastern Milk Snake of the year! A large one, too!




He was calm enough while holding him (some tail buzzing at first...), but got all jumpy when we released him. Still, a real beauty!

Not far away, our second Milk was spotted by Andrea!


This guy had a funny lower jaw... looked like it was healing from something as well as retaining some shed. It made him rather odd looking. He also buzzed his tail a bit... and musked. (Milk Snake musk isn't so bad, though...)

Medium/ large... not a bad size!



About to escape the heat of racer Alley (the part of Cutler that always kicks our ass) and hit the tunnel, an American Toad caught my attention! I got a thorn in my finger picking him up.



At the mouth of the tunnel, there was a dirty old T-shirt. Andrea suggested flipping it. I stole her thunder and did just that. Nuthin' under it.

No... wait! What's that quarter sized spiral??? It's a hatchling Ringneck!!!


He was a rambunctious little fella, too! He musked and writhed like he was a big guy!



Well, now! That was the first Ringneck we'd ever seen at Cutler!

Not everything there was a squamate... we heard Green Frogs calling from the marsh... all de-tuned banjo stringey! We saw a couple of colorful Redback Salamanders, too!



Next up, we found another Cutler first... in fact the first non-Snag and Kate's backyard specimen of a  Dekays Snake!!

He musked me too.



Those missed snakes were looming large! With no photographic proof, we can't count the Racer or Garter!

Andrea saved the day by spotting a Garter on the run (crawl?) and I gave chase. I ran about 15 feet after him, lost him, then found him again and did a full-body lunge!


He musked me, too.

But we got the shots!


He saved some musk for Andrea, too...


So, we left happy... a well spent 4 1/2 hours! I had a heady brew of 4 snake species' musk on my hands, we had sunburns, and were toast! Cutler kicked our asses again. But we loved it!

All aboard the Gravy Snake! 5-12-2012

We were in New Hampshire for this sunny Saturday but figured that, on the way home, we'd stop off and check out my friend Ryan's favorite local herping grounds... Ward Reservation in Andover MA. He always finds multiple Garters and some Water Snakes there so, in the interest of future hikes, we scoped it out.

Beautiful place! We got there at almost 5 PM... not exactly prime herpin' time, but it was still nice and warm. We went to "the bog", as Ryan always finds stuff on the boardwalk there.

Sure enough, there was some grass moving right of the boardwalk... I knelt to investigate and a small Water Snake jetted away. Sad to not get a picture, but in his escape, he scared the crap out of this massive Bullfrog who jumped into a good photo spot!

A little further along, we saw a nice Green Frog posing for us!

Further up, in a shadier area, I was about 10 feet in front on Andrea, who had stopped to investigate a "whooshing" sound. I went back and saw the cause of the sound... a slender Garter Snake!

We had to look really close to make sure he wasn't a Ribbon, so slim was he!

We called him the gravy snake because we didn't really expect to see anything on this walk!

On the way out, we saw a Green Frog hop across the boardwalk, which was amusing. Also, this raggedy Red Admiral posed for us!

So, this was all in about 50 minutes. The place, as it turns out, is huge. We're planning a NH herp trip soon, and Ward Reservation is definitely a stop we'll make on the way. I can imagine hitting it at 9 or 10 AM would be fruitful... if herps are fruit.

The Waters of Chelonian Surprise 5-6-2012

After two weeks of no real herping, we were so eager to get out that we didn't even care that it was only about 55°F and cloudy. Well, we might have cared but we were going ANYWAY! We'd decided on a park in Bristol County... one of our favorite new discoveries from last year.

It was really raw out when we arrived at about 10:30 AM. I was checking to see if my breath showed (it didn't) and I put the hood of my sweatshirt up. We saw a cool Redback, but the picture sucked. We made it to our favorite part of the park (lots of AC- artificial cover) and saw a very chubby Fowler's Toad!

Check out those lovely colors!


Then, much to our surprise, there was also a very cool-to-the-touch Black Racer!

He was in a shed and very very blue all over, much like the OverBite Racer of last year. We wondered if this area produced high-blue Racer morphs. Doubtful, but it's food for thought...



This is Andrea's first time holding a Black Racer!


We released him and he slithered home.


Not bad, considering it was so cool! Now, anything else would be gravy!

We saw some Red Velvet Mites, which are pretty. Mmmm... better than the cake!


And, in keeping with the color scheme, we got some decent photos of some Redback Salamanders finally!



More Fowlers Toads started showing up!




I flipped a large flat stone  that was on some sandy soil and there were 4 Fowler's under it!

Check the far left of the above picture... this guy's noggin is sticking out...


Wrangling all 4 for a photo was no easy feat, but we eventually managed to shoot what we call the Toad Summit!


We looked for turtles, as it had warmed up a bit and the sun kept trying to peek out. But no. There were some Plovers poking around, though.


We weren't sure how much we had in us, being so cool and all (plus were were 2 weeks out of practice...) But Andrea wanted to see if we could find a turtle, so we headed around the pond for different vantage points.

At one bush next to the trail, I thought I heard a "swoosh". I investigated and saw a thin blackish tail disappear into a pile of vegetation. I poked through it for 5 minutes and found nothing. I was foiled by a slim snake.

We scanned the water from a sandy path between two ponds. No turtles.

On the way back up (to continue around the pond) I decided to look at the place where the snake had handed me my ass. This fella was there, all checkered and cute! A Garter Snake!


He was nuts and very hard to photograph but eventually calmed down. Looks like he might have had a fairly recent meal in him.



By the way, when we released him, he went back to the same vegetation as earlier. We were able to recreate what I had seen before...


So, on the far side of the pond, we got our wish... there was a Painted Turtle basking!


Then, not far from there, we saw a bunch! In fact, before we snapped the pic, 3 or 4 plopped into the water!


We took this shot, then noticed something when looking at the picture... the big Snapper head behind the stump!


I got closer and got some noggin shots...

(That's a Painted head on the left, not far from the hoisted turtle and the Snapper head on the right)

Caught this guy mid-hoist!


So yeah! Chelonian surprises! But none so surprising as our photo of the Great Blue Heron. We hadn't seen all of the Painted turtles in this shot until we got home and uploaded it!!


So, we were extremely happy! 2 snake species, 2 turtle species, a toad species and a salamander species!

On the way out, Andrea found the first Leadback of the day!


Then, things went all Rana on us! We heard these two Bullfrogs before we saw them!


And what better way to end the story of this trip than to blog about two frogs in a bog?! (Green Frogs, to be exact!)



That's all I got. Good day, indeed! (Oh, and the sun came out for good on the drive home....)