It was the second day of March back in 2008, and a warm front was roaring up out of the south, bringing scudding clouds and rain. Up to that point, spring had not put in much of an appearance, with temperatures sometimes twenty degrees colder than normal. With this dramatic change in the weather, here at last was a window of opportunity to go look for a little frog that spends much of its life tucked out of sight. The winds were strong enough that I burned almost an extra quarter tank of gas while driving down to the bottom of Illinois. Close to sunset, I met up with Scott Albert and Mike Steffen at a local gas station. Scott…
-
-
Iquitos, a Peruvian river city accessible to the outside world only by water or air, has just one road leading out of town, a two-lane blacktop that runs for 60 km to the port of Nauta. The night before our tour group heads down the Amazon, we engage a van and driver and cruise the Nauta road (see my post ‘Road-Cruising in Amazonia‘ for more details). The experience gives our clients a taste of what’s to come, and a chance to get to know each other before the trip really kicks off. This year our night of cruising proved to be a rainy one, not so good for finding snakes, but most excellent conditions for frogs. We stopped at multiple…
-
There’s not much trouble with this herping life, except for the Too-Many-Too-Much problem: too many places to visit, too much to see, and too much to cram into a relatively short lifespan. It always boils down to money and time; choices have to be made, and there are too many bright and shiny objects to choose from in the herping world. I may regret not visiting the Everglades earlier, but what other experience would I have willingly missed to make room? You can probably guess the answer, but nevertheless I felt a bit irritated at taking so long to get there. I’ve been to Florida a number of times, but never any further south than Orlando. A July work conference…
