Monday the 21st,
No crap there I was….in Orla again, took a gamble and headed that way instead of to Iraan, it paid off, big time I think.
On the drive up to Orla, just outside of Mentone I snagged a BEAUTIFUL Western Hog Nose that immediately went through the whole spiel of dieing, quiet entertaining, I kissed the ground and thanked the Herp Gods, as it seemed like it would be a good night.
The evening started off with arriving before dark in the big town of Orla, where even the rocks are lonely. We stopped at some abandoned houses (be VERY careful when doing this, it is bet done in the day light, lots of stuff to hurt yourself on) and flipped some tin, finding a very large Great Plains Skink, that promptly latched onto the webbing between my thumb and fore finger and didn’t let go for a good 4 minutes. He was pretty, we kept him, seemed friendly enough anyways. Gloria (my wife) was foaming at the mouth at this point, (maybe a bit of an exaggeration) to get out and do some road hunting. ½ mile down the Super Secret Splendid Road (TSSSR) we came across what looked to be an impossible site, it looked like a large black rope going across the road, Gloria had to stop the car as I was driving and already out the door when the car was still going about 3mph or so. I was rewarded with the largest male Spledida I have ever seen, 56 and ¾ inches long! Horridly ugly, scared up to all heck, but in my eyes he was the most beautiful animal of the night, we named him Elvis on the spot. After loving on him, and high fiveing each other (with an errant grope thrown in for good measure) we where on our way. About 500 yards down the road, I stopped for a 3’ Kansas Glossy with orange cross bands. I have never seen this before so I snagged her got into the car made it 20 feet or so and a male with orange speckling (that is now loose in my house…bastard) I kid you not, every fifth scale in an almost uniform pattern is bright stinking ORANGE, crawled out of the brush, perhaps following his love? Grabbed him to as a breeding project for later and moved on. Another quarter mile or so came across 1.1 Texas Long Nose nice beautiful adults very clean uniform pattern, could have been clones of each other. Gloria insisted (no against my will) that they come home with us. Toads, and more toads, the usual suspects, Red Spot, Texas Toad, Great Plains Toad, and good old Couches(Sp?) Spade Foot where out in force. Throughout the rest of the night we found very little else worth mentioning, however it is worth mentioning that once the wind shifted from out of the SE to out of the East the herping DRIED up completely. Needles to say we went headed home around 2300 and where in bed at 0030.
