I have been putting off getting my pics assembled and posted, but finally got around to going through them all today. This is the first of 3 or 4 posts of stuff from the past several months.
Mid-March I took the wife and kid to the Big Bend area (we've been going every spring), this time for a canoe trip along the Rio Grande and backcountry camping in Big Bend Ranch State Park. While floating back down the river, I saw these sliders along the bank--Big Bend (Trachemys gigae) or just redears?
Didn't really see anything else herp-wise on that trip.
At the end of the month, Mike Price came up my way and I took a long lunch to flip some rocks in the hopes of turning up some milk snakes. None were to be found, but we turned up some lifers for me:
Ground snakes, Sonora semiannulata:
That one was one of two or three pattern variations within a 100-yard stretch.
Great Plains Skink, Eumeces obsoletus, and a large one at that:
I figured with the ease with which we flipped the ground snakes, it would be a good spot to take my daughter for her first flipping experience, so five days later I did:
Sure enough, this rock had a ground snake under it (but a different color variant from the one we found there the week prior):
Daughter was happy with her find:
We went home after spending a little more time flipping and started cleaning up the yard in preparations for our upcoming move. I lifted the kid's toy basketball goal and found this Great Plains Narrowmouth Toad, Gastrophryne olivacea:
With my time remaining in Texas quickly winding down, I was hoping to hit a couple of spots before my move. My daughter and I met up with Mike Price and his children again west of San Angelo to check out a spot where Mike practically guaranteed me all manner of herps. However, I think I'm the "bad luck" in any gathering of herpers, as we found only a few species.
Luckily one of the species that turned up was a variable skink, Eumeces multivirgatus epipleurotus:
In the background is F1 Mike Price stock. Another picture, in situ:
Another nice find was this juvenile coachwhip, Masticophis flagellum, held by my daughter; a decent pic of two uncooperative subjects:
The following day, I took my daughter on a road trip to Brownwood to check out one of the smaller TX rattlesnake roundups. Unlike what Sweetwater has become, this one was a little more sensationalized and what people think of when they think "rattlesnake roundup." Still, the "other" events (flea market type stuff) overshadowed the snake-oriented activities. I'll only include one picture, the primary snake wrangler taking an important call in the middle of the demonstration:
I think it was his mom telling him to be careful around the snakes.
More to come!
Chris
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet
