At our TX home we had a pond a couple hundred yards behind our house that we had never really checked out (though I knew the owners), so on 10 April I took the kid fishing out there. The only herp we turned up was this handsome [/sarcasm] Blanchard's Cricket Frog, Acris creptians blanchardi:
The highlight was my daughter catching her first bass, largemouth about a foot long.
Three days later, I was on my way to Kansas to look for a new home for the coming year, and stopped at my folks' house outside Oklahoma City for the night. They moved out into "the country" about 10 years too late for me, 'cause I would've loved to be able to find herps in my yard with regularity.
Here's a nice male Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata, in situ (neighbor's house in the background):
Picture all up in his grill:
Later that evening I found a female ornate bedding down for the night along one of the landscape timbers in the yard. Wild strawberry grows here and I'm sure the turtles partake in season.
My parents have LOTS of Woodhouse's Toads, Bufo (=Anaxyrus) woodhousii, in their yard, which eat voluminous amounts of bugs, as evidenced by voluminous amounts of poop all over the sidewalk. Here's one waiting patiently in its hidey-hole in the mulch for nightfall:
At the end of the month, we moved some of our belongings to our Kansas abode. On the way through Oklahoma, we stopped in the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, which is usually a good spot for reliably finding Mountain Boomers (Eastern Collared Lizards), Crotaphytus collaris. However, I've been there 4 times this year and have not seen the usual abundance, especially around the visitor center. Part of it is because some of my visits were too early, and some were during the hottest parts of the day.
We did turn up this rat snake, should be a TX rat (Pantherophis (=Elaphe) obsoletus lindheimeri) in this part of OK. He was crossing the road and scooted off during the photo shoot:
A stop at the visitor center revealed no 'boomers. However, my luck changed heading east towards the refuge boundary, when I spotted this
nice male about a hundred yards from the road:
Here's a closer shot:
And one more, after he took up a battle position in a crevice:
My daughter was with me, and when the lizard made a break for it through her legs as she stood on top of the rock it sure surprised her.
The last weekend in May/first weekend in June we took one last whirlwind trip around Texas before my wife and kid headed up to Kansas (I still had to work in TX for most of June and would join them later). We hit Garner State Park, Sea World San Antonio, Lake Whitney State Park, and the Glen Rose area (Paluxy dinosaur tracks, Fossil Rim Wildlife Safari).
On the way between San Antonio and Lake Whitney we drove through Fredericksburg and stopped at Wildseed Farms (wildflower growing facility) and toured the grounds. We saw several TX Spotted Whiptails (Aspidocelis (=Cnemidophorus) gularis), but this one was particularly fun to watch as it tackled a large gray caterpillar.
I will break June's adventures into two separate posts.
Chris
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet
