After arriving at my parents' house southwest of Oklahoma City Friday afternoon, I spent the obligatory "visiting" time and then set about exploring their sizeable yard after supper. Every time I'm there I secretly wish they could've owned that house while I was growing up (further in the city) due to the comparatively higher herp diversity.
Along the sidewalk behind the house, in addition to random grasshoppers, this little ground skink darted from under fallen sycamore leaves:
I'd never seen one of these skinks in their yard before.
Right around dark I was still walking around the yard, hoping to turn up a speckled king they'd found a few weeks back, when my wife and daughter almost step on this Texas Rat (in situ:
I picked him up for a better photo but slightly loosened my grip and got the expected ornery lindheimeri response:
After the wedding Saturday night my 4-year-old daughter was up past her bedtime anyway so we went out into Grandpa's yard looking for toads. Here she is with a couple:
I need to coach her on her grip, but at this point it was hard enough to get her to pick one up on her own (the first one croaked a lot and peed on her).
Nothing was found Sunday, but not for lack of trying. We checked some old carpet we had placed in the woods behind my parents' house a couple of years ago but something else had beat us to it. I couldn't even find any toads after dark.
This morning on our way home we took a side trip to Red Rock Canyon State Park for a little fishing and hiking. No collareds were found, but while trying to figure out how to get back down a cliff I got a crummy shot of a six-lined racerunner right in front of me--a little hard to make out among the grass:
I saw him gobble up a small insect but my one-handed camera skills aren't the best--the other hand was clinging to the fairly slick rock for dear life!
Another planned side trip to the 1849er landmark Rock Mary was not fruitful, as I haven't been there in 10-some years and forgot how to get there! Rock Mary is the site of my first collared lizard capture back when I was in Cub Scouts and I'd like to get some more photos of lizards from that locale. Maybe I'll make it there in August and get some hatchling shots too.
I know this isn't the most exciting post, but this was my first herping since I returned from overseas so I was happy to take what I could get.
Chris
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet
