Went out to one of my favorite spots in central Oregon this weekend to do some herping. We did some night cruisin’ Saturday night and found nothing; the weather was a little cold. When we woke up the next morning I did a walk around camp and found 2 northern pacific rattlesnakes a southern alligator lizard and a pacific gopher snake. The snake was a welcome surprise as I went digging in the rocks for the lizard! I didn’t realize it was opening weekend in the campgrounds so we took off to another location.



Within 20 minutes of arriving we found two western racers crossing the trail, not the best time to catch them so I let them go. I then headed over to a place that I must have checked out twenty times before and never found anything, but I knew it was gopher territory. At last I found one! he had the scars to show from the other inhabitants in his area, coyotes judging by the location of the scars.



I finally found alligator lizards in this area and how. I caought one large male that was all of 14” and had a 9” tail, the southerns have to have some of the longer tails and it was awesome finding one with no scars and a complete tail.



We were getting near the end of our 8 mile out and back hike when I saw another southern pacific rattler crossing the trail. He was maybe 2 feet long but had atleast 10 buttons kinda small for that many I think. That pumped me up again so we hiked another mile and found another pacific gopher snake. On the hike back we were pretty beat so there wasn’t a lot of off trail searching but we still saw numerous racers and the more common fence and sagebrush lizards.



All in All it was a great day in the desert and I was glad to have a girlfriend to hike with while I’m all over the place lookin’ for critters. The total count was

12 western racers

3 adult southern alligator lizard and one newborn

2 southern pacific rattlesnakes

3 Oregon red spotted garters

3 pacific gopher snakes

1 unverifiable but doubly confirmed western ribbon snake

Hundreds of western fence and sagebrush lizards

the only thing in this range that I haven’t found here are night snakes and spinytail snakes and I’m sure its just a matter of time





I hope you enjoy the pics

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