Well, I am gonna try to post a herp every day that I am out, if I fail, I may insert one left over from a previous outing, but I will try not to. I travel through most of coastal south Texas and some southwestern counties on ranches installing hurricane shutters. This gives me more road time than a herper with a more normal job. Todays find is again from Rockport, Texas, Aransas county where I have one more day tomorrow to finish up. First we saw one dor red eared slider juvy on the way in, no snakes. Every once in a while I find an ornate box turtle crossing this two lane back road, so I keep my eyes peeled. Anyway, I was up on a scaffold hooking up a motor to an electric rollup shutter when movement below caught my eye. It was a very large skink, and I told my helper to keep his eye on it while I monkeyed down after it. I tried to keep the walkboard between me and his line of sight, but he saw me at the last minute and scooted around the corner. We both went around and saw a lot of torn down Bahama shutters leaning on the neighbors' wall. This was gonna be tricky, as they usually sneak off wjhile you are shifting through the rubble. The last piece of cover was lifted and I got a good look at him, a male broad headed skink in full courting colors. He decided to go arboreal on me and shot up a hole in the brick wall, I jump over and we managed to scare him back over. After another pile sift, we finally found him dug in under the concrete edge of the brick wall. A very pretty distraction from the days' drudgery!
Todd Hughes
