Early Sunday Morning. 7-5-2020

The only way to hike a popular spot is to get there very early and hit the trails before the throngs of human dross encrust the place. A hot Sunday was predicted and we got to our well-into-Norfolk County place before 8:30 AM. Right away, we saw a big gal of a garter waking up and stretching out to greet the day.

We stepped into a small building that Barn Swallows (#55) have taken over. They objected to our presence.

At the pond, this massive Bullfrog was seen among the lilypads.

There was a pile of sticks next to the trail. I knew if I looked at it long enough, a Garter Snake would appear. And one did.


A beautiful, bronzey Green Frog.


A small vernal pool there had plenty of movement below the surface of the water. Things will be emerging soon. This Bullfrog was keeping guard at the edge.


This Redback was a surprise... they're usually in hiding when the weather is hot.

I think that is the only salamander we have seen all month.

All along the path, if you looked closely, Garters were waking up. Andrea helped the top one wake up a bit.




This Green hopped across the path in front of us and into the brush. Tough shot, but it came out OK.


Most turtle perches were out of view but these two Painters were enjoying what they found. (The little guy is about 3 feet in front of the other one.)


Again, piles of cleared sticks next to the path were golden. It's a good, inconspicuous spot to warm up, so said this in-the-blue Garter.


Also enjoying a warm up was this stunning Ribbon Andrea spotted.

You don't get sauritus much prettier than that!

A Pickerel Frog jumped into the deep grass right in front of me. Mercifully, it didn't hop off as I carefully pulled back the grass and I got a nice photo of it!


Andrea took the high road (trail) in this beautiful, verdant setting.


At the far end of the park, there's a small, hidden pile of rocks where we've seen Milk Snakes in the past so we're always sure to take a look there. No Milks, but there were dozens of Tiny Toads, likely Americans (we've never documented Fowler's here).



That had us watching our step very closely. Which is a good thing, because this juvenile Milk Snake was squiggling through the grass, probably also interested in the toadlets.


We sat for a spell on a bench. We were officially at the half-way point. We watched the birds and relaxed. We saw a Carolina Wren (#57) flitting back and forth to a rock wall below where we sat, and we noticed it had some food.


When we got up, we went o look at the wall and saw the nest that it kept visiting.


We went on and commented on how many Garters we'd seen. For all of the ones we managed photos of, there was another that was too fast and slithered away. Here's another one that we tracked down in the brush.


Answering our question of "Where the Nerodia at?" was this large female stretched out next to the path.

Our tenth species of the day... fourth snake species! Thank you, Mother Nature!

Considering the past few years have been pretty bad for Ribbon Snake sightings (our first and only Ribbon in 2018 was on December 29th), it was with great joy that we saw our second and third Ribbons of the day next!



Back to Painted Turtles... the big,

and the very small.


Sunning behind some rocks, not 10 feet away from the filthy human garbage that was starting to pour into the park, was this pair of digesting Garters.


A pair of humans who didn't suck (a rarity, but there are some) were off next to a stream photographing something. We asked what was up and they generously showed us a Bullfrog that was likely being stalked by a Water Snake. The Bully was inflated to a massive size.


The Nerodia was about 6 feet away, thinking it over.


While we all watched, the snake moved a little closer, up onto a log in the water.

Then the Bull, who frankly looked too big too attempt to eat (though I've seen it happen before) plopped off in an ungainly fashion. I don't know if the snake pursued it further... we had to move on.

We checked a few more faithful areas out before hitting the car, but saw no more animals. In order to avoid the encroaching humanity, we took a different way out. Andrea had noticed a far area that had some rocks and sun and shade and all of the stuff we know snakes would enjoy.

There was a grill out there and I jokingly said something about snakes having a barbecue. Andrea pointed out that I wasn't far off.

There were two Garters, she said. I went closer and saw where the other one had moved to. Tight squeeze.


That was the last thing we photographed, though another Garter or two darted away from us on the way to the car. Not a bad day, and it was barely noon. The heat was on and the human stew was bubbling all around us; a perfect time to go home. But we'd seen 10 species of reptile and amphibian and I'd added 4 birds to the 2020 count. I call that a successful trip.

In Depends Dance Day Weekend. July 3rd and 4th.

We were both work-free on Friday, July 3rd and made plans to visit Andrea's mum. But being the intrepid adventurers that we are, we wanted to check out the Green Snake place before heading over. After all, we hadn't seen a Green yet on the year. Spoiler alert: we still haven't.

But the good thing about this place is that you can see loads of beautiful Garters, too. And we did. A few crawled away without photos, so we tag teamed this little squirmer to try to defeistify him. He wound up looking like a Margaret Keene painting in the photo.


Most of the Garters were still snoozing. Like this Ball Garter.



Um, no... I'm not going to look over there.


This guy, while not photographed very well, had gorgeous jet-black sides.


One last cutie before we left.


We went over to Andrea's Mom's house to shoot the breeze for a while. Naturally, knowing that the DeKay's Snakes are back, I poked around. I found two teeny little buggers among the small rocks and one inside a brick!


I actually got the first one fairly close to snake-hater Marge for her to look at. She's getting there.

The next day was July 4th. My initial plan was to go to Plymouth County, but I'd let Andrea sleep in and the road to Plymouth is also the road to Cape Cod and the traffic would have destroyed our souls, so we stayed in Norfolk County and hit a spot there for the first time this year. It was already very hot and sticky so we didn't expect to stay very long. We started off with a Painted Turtle. Nothing weird about that.

Except it was the only one we'd see all day!

Another interesting thing about this particular place... we see plenty of toads here and they all seem to be of the Fowler's variety. Most of our Fowler's spots are further south. This guy is a big beauty, too.


I added three birds to the count this day. I never tire of watching Double-crested Cormorants (#52) dry their wings.


This small/ medium sized Snapper was enjoying a bask in the sun.


I'd had a bit of a scare as I'd photographed a very distant turtle up and when checking the camera in the field, it had a yellow chin. There are no Blanding's here that we're aware of and the build of the pond seems all wrong for them but I went for another shot just as the turtle was diving in. Missed the chance.

Once I got to look at the first shot better in the car, I saw it was a Snapper. The yellow chin was just yellow compared to the rest of the photo.

Andrea spied Tiny Toads, likely Fowler's.


Here's a medium Fowler's, which made me wonder if they eat Tinies of their own kind. I would.


We took a path we don't often take but it was shady and we were very hot. It paid off when we spotted this full-bellied Garter.

He also won me a free smoothie... we had a "Whoever finds the first snake" contest going.

Andrea topped that, however, when she spotted this Ribbon in the bushes.

That's a new species for us here.


This is likely the same Snapper we'd seen basking a couple of hours earlier, just on a different rock. But wow, what a magnificent beauty!


While we were watching the Snapper, Andrea noticed a Musk thinking about climbing up to a rock, but then changing its mind. I had very little chance at a good photo, but managed this:


One more amusing sight before we left... Snapper butt raised to the sky, saluting the flag.


Turtles make the world go 'round.