Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Despite being in mid winter, my season got started earlier than usual this year when yesterday I found my target species, an adult male Rubber Boa.

My field season usually starts sometime in February. But every 4 - 5 years, suitable conditions for making searches for reptiles occurs in the month of January here in the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon.

Richard F. Hoyer (Corvallis, Oregon)

Richard, your work always piques my interest, any habitat shots and animals would be appreciated! It is usually very warm or mild with lots of sun in winter on the Texas Gulf Coast, I've had a few neat finds this year already, but nothing like last year. It is the same here, every 4-5 years we have a phenomenal season, seems last year was it for me, lol!
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Todd Hughes

Todd;
Don't own a camera with my last one having been stolen. Although my wife can take photos on her camera and then transmit them to me on my computer, I haven't the foggiest notion of how to send them to the forum.

Habitat is mostly grassland type habitat at the edge of brush and often in association with oak and / or Douglas fir stands.

As a general rule, when temperatures reach the mid 50's locally for about 3 or more days with some sunshine, I can count on finding the species under the artificial cover objects I deploy for finding the species. Generally, such conditions usually occur at the earliest in February. I have found at least one adult male Rubber Boa every February since 1971. But finding the species during the month of January is unusual and rare for the month of December.

That isn't so much the case further south along some of the coastal areas of Calif. such as the Santa Cruz Mts. south of San Francisco where temperature conditions are generally warmer than here in Oregon and sunshine occurs more frequent as well.

And of course, southern California, southern Florida, and southern Texas are places where finding reptiles during the winter is the rule and not the exception. Keep in mind that where I live in Corvallis, our latitude is equivalent to the southern 1/3rd of Minnesota and Maine.

Richard F. Hoyer

Went out this afternoon to release the boa found on Jan. 21st. and found four more adult male boas at the two sites where I made searches.

Richard F. Hoyer