It’s a bit of a drive but we made from the ocean to the desert in time to get in some road-cruising after dark. There’s one quiet road that I really like, and as a bonus our friend Dan drove in from L.A. to hang out for a couple days. It’s a great road for sidewinders (Crotalus cerastes) and they did not disappoint. In fact, the sidewinders were downright amazing. We came upon our second predation event of the trip, an adult sidewinder with a kangaroo rat, right in the road. We stayed at the scene to make sure no vehicles interrupted (or ran over) the snake as it swallowed its prey. No telling if it had envenomated the roo…
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It started in Las Vegas, as many stories do, and really, there were several significant loops made during this journey. I went through the PITA hoops to secure a rental car at the airport, and then picked up Tim and John at a casino and we left Vegas in our rear-view mirror, heading west into California. We crashed that night near Bakersfield, and the next morning, headed further west to the Carrizo Plain National Monument. We met up with a group doing research on Bluntnose Leopard Lizards (Gambelia sila), and I was thrilled that we got the opportunity to walk the research area and help search for these lizards (which blend in very well with their surroundings). I was even…
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One morning we stopped in at a local animal shelter near Filadelfia and it proved to be quite an interesting experience. Jake and Dermot made a new friend – a fish-eating raccoon named ‘Shampoo’. A little nippy and a lot nosy. The place also had a large number of rescued Redfoot Tortoises (Chelonoidis carbonaria). Dermot and I are redfoot aficionados, and we had a great time walking among the many beautiful adult tortoises. I had high hopes of seeing a wild redfoot, but it was not to be on this trip. The place also had a South American Tapir (Tapirus terrestris), which was dog-tame and enjoyed being petted and scratched. Another new experience for me. The shelter had a number…
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NOTE: “Hot Stove Herping’ is a phrase I coined years ago, for use in end-of-year posts on the old Field Herp Forum. I stole it from baseball; members of the ‘hot stove league’ huddle together during the cold winter months and talk baseball until spring and the game comes back. In a similar fashion, field herpers living in moderate climates hunker down amid the cold and snow and think of the year that passed, and dream of the coming spring. Ah, Paraguay. Paraguay is a beautiful country but desperately needs to revamp their immigration bureaucracy – three members of our group were turned back at Customs for ‘suspected forgery of Covid documents’ (they weren’t). Needless to say, this was a…
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Note: ‘Hot Stove Herping’ is a phrase I coined years ago, for use in end-of-year posts on the old Field Herp Forum. I stole it from baseball; members of the ‘hot stove league’ huddle together during the cold winter months and talk baseball until spring and the game comes back. In a similar fashion, field herpers living in moderate climates hunker down amid the cold and snow and think of the year that passed, and dream of the coming spring. For the first time in ten years, I did not start off the herping season in January with a trip to Peru. Due to Covid, we canceled our expeditions for the year and planned on regrouping in 2022. As it…
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NOTE: “Hot Stove Herping’ is a phrase I coined years ago, for use in end-of-year posts on the old Field Herp Forum. I stole it from baseball; members of the ‘hot stove league’ huddle together during the cold winter months and talk baseball until spring and the game comes back. In a similar fashion, field herpers living in moderate climates hunker down amid the cold and snow and think of the year that passed, and dream of the coming spring. This herping trip took place in early April 2021 and spans three states – Louisiana, Mississippi, and a little bit of Alabama. Much of the trip was spent checking out trash piles, tin sites, and board lines across the three…
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Spring, summer or fall, it doesn’t matter – when the sun sets on the far side of the Mississippi, amphibians and reptiles are out and about in the La Rue-Pine Hills Research Natural Area. Walking along Snake Road after dark can be interesting and can produce a few surprises. Treefrogs tend to start coming out after sunset, and it doesn’t have to be completely dark out – mostly dark seems to be enough to trigger activity. Perhaps the most common (and most iconic) is the Green Treefrog (Hyla cinerea). Green treefrogs are easier to spot at night. They tend to move out from their hiding places in the vegetation, and they stand out very well in the beam of a…
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There are many ways to discover amphibians and reptiles – you can road-cruise for them, flip rocks and logs and trash, or even just walk them up. But if you haven’t made use of boardwalks, you’re missing out. There are a lot of boardwalks out there in parks, preserves, and natural areas, and birders make good use of them. As it happens I’ve spotted a number of interesting herps from boardwalks crowded with birders, all of them looking up or out while my focus is considerably closer to the ground. Boardwalks typically allow access to wet areas like swamps or marshes, and this past April I spent some time at a swamp boardwalk in the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park…
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The word terrapin is rooted in the language of native peoples of North America. It is derived from torope, which comes from the southern Algonquin, and more specifically, from the long-extinct Powhatan tongue. It's no secret that words and phrases change over time, and when Europeans roll unfamiliar...
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In January, 2020, with Covid19 still a vague rumor, I traveled to Ecuador with three friends to the Mindo Valley area. We spent a few days up in the hills and mountains (as a flatlander, they all look like mountains to me). Aided by Eric, a local guide, our goal was to see frogs and lizards inhabiting the cloud forest habitat found at higher elevations. Arriving in Quito, we hired a driver with a pickup truck to haul us and our gear up to Mindo. The four of us were not an easy fit in the small crew-cab truck, and it was an uncomfortably cramped journey, and we arrived after midnight, when all the people were asleep and all the…
