Well, it wasn't quite an extravaganza, but I started that post title theme a couple of posts back and am reluctant to switch formats!
Still having a few days of vacation I "have" to take within the next few weeks, I set myself up for this past Thursday and Friday--set up several weeks in advance, with no idea what the weather would be like. Initially I was supposed to go to Caprock Canyon SP up near the TX-OK border to look for collared lizards, but that plan was to camp with my family, who backed out after the Padre NS trip. Since I was going to be solo, and since I'm used to even more austere conditions such as driving long hours and sleeping in the car, I changed my itinerary to the following:
Wednesday after work: drive as far toward the Rio Grande Valley as I could get, cruising Val Verde County along the way.
Thursday: arrive in the Valley and search for the reticulated collared lizard, Crotaphytus reticulatus--a long-time "would like to see one" species. Drive back through Val Verde for cruising etc.
Friday: drive home.
As many of you know, the western half of TX has been absolutely PUMMELED with rainfall this year. I know in my neck of the woods, we're on track to exceed the annual average by close to 50%. While this should prove to be beneficial for herping in a couple of WEEKS, it makes for fairly lousy herping NOW (relatively speaking). Wednesday was no different, with massive thunderstorms coinciding with a front which had set up and camped out over much of west TX for a couple of days.
Regardless of how bad the conditions looked, I had more or less painted myself into a corner regarding this trip, and I felt I HAD to go now or probably miss my chance to make it to the Valley. I left my house Wednesday evening under heavy rain, and drove in very limited visibility until I finally reached the trailing edge of the thunderstorms south of San Angelo.
As I reached Interstate 10 looking south, I noticed the slow-moving front was still over Hwy 277, but not 163 (Juno Road). While I had initially planned on taking 277 south through Del Rio and onward, I changed plans and headed west on I-10 to Juno Rd.
Although the rain had stopped, the heavy downpours dropped the temp to 59 degrees where it held steady until the sun was able to peek out from behind the clouds and cast its warm, glowing, warming glow on the land. Eventually, in the scant couple of hours before sunset, the air temperature had warmed all the way up to 63; definitely not optimal but I figured I'd still see what was out and about. Turns out it was a great night, if you are really into toads!
I saw TMTC Woodhouse's and red-spotted toads, maybe some other kinds as well, along Juno. There was a lot of standing water in numerous spots on the road, and running water in some of the dips--even worse was the debris line from where the water had reached its peak and then receded. If you weren't paying attention, hitting the debris line would cause the car to change direction at high speed.
As I reached Cully Crossing, I had to traverse several inches of swift water, and what appeared to be a soft, sandy patch on the road. After successfully making it past Cully, I arrived at Juno Crossing to see this:
Since it's difficult to make out, the pic is of the road descending into the murky depths, and the flood gauge indicates about 3.5 feet. At this point I decided not to test my Corolla's amphibious capability and turned back northward, realizing my plans of making it to Laredo were rapidly deteriorating. Upond reaching Cully Crossing heading north, I saw that the "sandy patch" I noticed the first time was actually the "new" edge of the roadway--part of the road and underlying earth were GONE! I'm lucky I didn't cause further collapse and lose my car!
After losing a couple of hours backtracking, I decided against driving 277 south in case it had suffered the same fate as 163, so I went all the way to Junction before taking 83 south. I didn't see any more herps until 0200, when I found a DOR checkered garter about 6 miles south of La Prior. This far south, the temp was a tolerable 64 degrees with no rain and clear skies. I eventually stopped around 0330 for some shuteye.
Upon waking at 0630, I continued my southward journey and finally ended up in the lower Valley just west of McAllen. I searched a couple of sites suggested by a forum member which should have been productive for C. reticulatus, but found none (partly because the promised trash and other cover was either cleaned up, or because I was in the wrong spot). I did find a few whiptails:
If I had to guess, I'd guess run-of-the-mill Aspidocelis sexlineatus--someone please correct me if I'm wrong; anything besides the six-lined would probably be a lifer for me.
That was the first trash site. The second site had lots of trash, but I might have been at the wrong spot for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that although I had been told it was an abandoned area, there were plenty of signs of human habitation and recent activity--I wasn't sure if it was "legitimate" or border-crossing activity, which gave me the creeps. I tried to turn my car around on the narrow dirt road and got stuck in the mud, thanks to the recent rainfall. After a short display of Superior Driving Skill I was able to free the car, but for a while I'm sure the scene was reminiscent of Austin Powers when he got the little tram stuck sideways in the building!
Before heading out to the main road, I noticed a truck pulling out of the area. I was backing down the dirt road since I couldn't successfully turn around. I searched one main trash pile on my way out, but I thought I had seen someone near that area on the way in so I was leery of wandering too far. Furthermore, a couple of hogs starting heading towards me, and I didn't want to stick around to see if they were friendly/domesticated or not. No herps found at this site, so I was ready to leave anyway. HOWEVER, as I approached the main road, I discovered a gate across the dirt road, locked in several places--I was trapped! Funny how I didn't notice this on the way in.
Not knowing exactly what to do, I hopped the gate, walked to the main road, and attempted to flag down traffic. Nobody stopped. After several attempts I figured I might as well head back toward the nearest town--I noticed a shool a few miles away. As I got about a quarter of the way there a police cruiser approached, so I flagged him down and luckily we were able to trace who owned the property and he came and freed me. I apologized profusely and continued on my way.
Totally disappointed at my lack of success in finding my [i[reticulatus[/i[ target, I decided to drive down one of the dirt roads suggested by my as-yet "unreliable source" :wave: and just head back north to Falcon State Park. It's a good thing I did, because through a stroke of blind, dumb luck I saw this sitting on the side of the road:
I couldn't believe it! It was a nice, BIG, female reticulated collared lizard. I backed up after passing it to get a better shot, and took this one looking out my car's window:
I then further backed up in order to reposition the car for a closer shot, but I think the lizard thought I was going to run it over, and it scampered straight up the earthen embankment (about 6 feet) and out of sight. This was approx. 11:20 in the morning, with an air temp of 83 degrees, a dirt-road surface temp of 101, partly cloudy with no wind.
Continuing west on this road I found a boulder pile about 10 minutes later. Even from the car about 100 feet away I saw lizards perched atop the rocks. I initially thought they might be C. collaris, but after further finds later in the day I now know they were Sceloporus cyanogenis--they look an awful lot like eastern collareds from afar, which is as close as I cold get before they'd scamper away.
I arrived at Falcon State Park after noon and ate some delicious MRE that I've had for close to ten years. I noticed this trail:
Now, every time I see one of those "watch out for snakes" signs, I take that as a bad omen, and this sign maintained that tradition. Near the lake's boat ramp I saw some decent flippin' style rocks:
Upon flipping the one in the lower right of the pic, I found this toad:
I drove pretty much every road, paved and unpaved, I could find in the park, hoping to get lucky with another Retic find, but no such luck. I decided to see if Falcon Dam had some rock rip-rap to check, so I drove south to the dam and was happy to find it COVERED in Sceloporus cyanogenis:
Again, I could only approach to within about 50 feet, hence the not-very-good pic. These animals were absolutley beautiful--turquoise backs, yellow heads, and black collars--like I said, a lot like collared lizards in appearance AND in habit; I've found collaris in the same niche in Oklahoma, living on the rip-rap of manmade reservoirs. While the air temp was a mere 81 degrees, the boulders were 105 degrees and the lizards were quite happy to be sitting in the hot sun.
On the way to the dam, I noticed what appeared to be a DOR snake in the road about a mile prior. I figured I'd stop to take data on the way out, but when I arrived I discovered these caracaras had absconded with the quarry:
I continued up to Del Rio and noticed several sliders crossing the road; some successful, some not so much. Here's one I moved along:
I also noticed more tarantulas crossing the road than I'd ever seen on previous trips to the area.
I timed my travel to arrive at Juno Road at sunset again, this time from the southern end. Officially, the road was now closed off, so that made it perfect for road-cruising--no tire-test vehicles and no through traffic. I stopped at the first cut and noticed headlights coming my way. At first I thought it might be local LE telling me I couldn't be there, but was relieved to find it was another herper (devilsnake05 from the kingsnake.com Alterna Forum). We shot the breeze for a bit and "rak" showed up on his way out. Rak said Bakers Crossing was flooded but passible, and Jarrett Crossing was totally impassible, as evidenced by the truck that was stuck in the middle of it. After that everyone split up.
I shined the first small cut I saw but found nothing other than a whole lot of fireflies. A silver truck passed me without stopping to chat as I was getting back into my car. I figured that was pretty rude but hung back and drove slow so I didn't crowd them in their cruising and cut-walking. I didn't see anything until 2200 when I found a DOR fence lizard. I also finally caught up to the silver truck--turns out it wasn't herpers after all, but some no-good teenage punks parked and making out or something.
This should probably be in the "dangers of herping" thread--large livestock loose on the roads. This tends to help you keep your road-cruising speed down. I find that my speed increases proportionate to the time since the last herp sighting, but a bull in the middle of the road usually causes me to slow down, at least for a few minutes afterward:
Just before Bakers Crossing I met up with devilsnake05 again. He had found a nice juvenile copperhead just 10 minutes prior, so "stuff was moving," which got my hopes up. I successfully negotiated Bakers Crossing and continued on up the road, shining cuts and carefully watching the road, but all I saw other than scads of desert millipedes were two examples of Cophosaurs texanus sleeping on the road:
This one was sleeping so soundly there were ants crawling on it. I thought it was dead until I prodded it and it burst forth, seeking shelter on my foot:
It reminded me of a little kid--"I can't see you, so you can't see me." I picked it up for a more decent shot:
And a ventral shot--female?
Here's Jarrett Crossing, impassible as advertised, with the truck stuck in the middle:
As I crossed Bakers Crossing southbound, I noticed two things: a lot of what appeared to be fish, attempting to swim "upstream" across the swiftly-flowing water covering the road, and this painted turtle(?) which was initially on the roadway, but scooted off upon my approach, yet turned around and valiantly tried to climb back up to the road:
That was at midnight, by which time the air temp had dropped to 62 degrees. At midnight-thirty, I saw my only snake of the night--a DOR ground snake:
Must've been run over by those no-good teenage punks. Too bad; would've been a lifer for me (I don't count DORs).
I ended my night at 0130 and got some more great rest in the back seat/trunk of my car:
Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for that, but I'm also getting too cheap to fork over Sums of Money for a few hours' use of a motel room!
Friday morning, I walked the tops of the cuts east of Comstock, flipping rocks in hopes of finding the elusive TX banded gecko, but I think it was just too wet. I STILL haven't found brevis, but I've managed to find both threatened reticulatus species!
On my way home, I stopped in San Angelo to pay a visit to the Nature Center, had a nice chat with the WTHS President and was able to pick up a copy of Merker's Alterna book--nice pics! Overall, the trip will be chalked up as a success due to the reticulated collared find, and I picked up one of the numerous millipedes for the kid:
She's thrilled. We now have a small menagerie in her room--her betta, my abbotti banded gecko, the millipede, and two monarch butterfly pupae which are about to emerge any day now.
All I have to do now is figure out how to make it back to Val Verde for one night this week--it should be jumpin'!
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet
