The rainy season paid no attention to the calendar and the downpours continued. The water was high at the Madre Selva field station, high enough to reach the steps of the kitchen tambo, and to leave the station’s generator on its own island. The boats were tied up close to the kitchen, and one night, Dan Wylie spotted something sculling along the bottom next to the skiff. “Pipa!” he shouted, but he could not get hands on it before it scooted away into deeper water. A few nights later, we were paddling down the Rio Orosa, coming back after a night of chasing black caiman back in the varzea, and I spotted my first Pipa pipa as it swam under…
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…was a frog. Or rather, a dozen frogs. Recently, Tracey Mitchell and I made one last trip to the southern portion of Illinois, in hopes of finding a few more serpents before the door slammed for good on the season. Temperatures the previous night had dropped into the lower thirties, but with a forecast of sun and sixty, we thought our chances were pretty good of seeing a few cool species close to their hibernacula. The destination for our one-day rocket run south was a set of limestone bluffs, remote and seldom visited by other herpers, mostly because there is no easy way to reach them. There are no trails, and one has to force a path through blackberry bush…
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I arrived a day later than the rest of the 2013 expedition to Baja Sur, in order to save myself $250 on the plane ticket. Consequently, I missed out on the first day’s catch, including a large calling congress of Spotted Toads (Bufo punctatus), and several Cape Aquatic Garter Snakes (Thamnophis valida celaeno), found along a rocky mountain stream that first day. I deeply regret the toads. Is a lifer garter snake worth $250? Probably, but that’s another blog post. Fortunately, mis amigos held back the snakes for a day and I was able to examine and photograph an adult and a juvenile. A nice consolation prize, but of course, I wanted to see one for myself. Who wouldn’t? Flash…
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I started field herping in the early 1970s. I’ve been blogging about herps since 1996. Of course, blogging hadn’t been invented yet, but nobody told us, the handful of proto-bloggers who felt the compulsion to write about our adventures with amphibians and reptiles. I used to write lengthy missives about some of the trips I made, but it was very time consuming, and these days I don’t have the time for that. It also led to a lot of sloppy writing without much thought behind it. Very embarrassing. My goal with this blog is keep the focus on a single theme – a specific herp, a singular moment, a topic I want to explore. Everything bouncing around in my brain…
