Local herping

No new lifers this time around, but a fun trip. Amanda, Ritt, Mike and I hit two local spots that we visited earlier in the summer, hoping to see more Coal Skinks and Green Snakes. We didn't (well, we didn't catch any I should say).

We pull out some beautiful redbellies pretty fast:


We didn't pull a whole lot more out of that site, so we headed back down:


We scoured a field at the base of that hill for some snakes and blueberries:


I was able to chase down two flutterbys (a third, a big unidentified fritillary, got away):

Common Wood-Nymph

Pearly Crescent

Next we checked a small pond in the area.


Mike bent down in the grass, searching. Suddenly he let out a big whoop, and pulled up this beauty:

Tag!!!

She's the biggest Nerodia sipedon (Northern Watersnake) I've ever seen, a great big gravid female. She was pretty calm after giving Mike a nip.


Mike counted 40-some small punctures from all four upper jaw teeth rows. The big girl almost looks proud. I know Mike is:


We picked up a few unidentified Rana. Amanda claimed oddly colored and patterned Pickerel Frogs, I can't help but wonder why the odd color and pattern matches Leopard Frogs



Here's a real Pickerel we caught later:

To top off our first spot, we flipped some rocks along a little creek for sallies. Nothing out of the ordinary. Amanda flipped big Wolf Spider guarding her egg sac:


We moved on to a second spot to try unsuccessfully for Coal Skinks and Green Snakes. We flipped this:

to find the sharpest-patterned Brown Snake I've ever seen:

In a bark pile we were digging in for skinks, I pulled out the remains of a Tiger Moth that I think was chewed up by the ants in the pile:

A few more miscellaneous shots. Another redbelly:

A Redback with a regenerating tail:

A large Redback:

A Redback nest:

And finally the belly red of a red belly: