My herp adventure yesterday was an unfortunate bust!!! The weather appeared good, temps right about 70F, mostly sunny day. The area we herped has been cleaned up a lot since my buddy last herped the area prior to Hurricane Katrina. The area is located around the spillway system west of New Orleans between Lake Ponchartrain and the Mississippi River. Since the hurricane and efforts to improve the levee systems, my bud commented on how much debris has been removed and how much road improvements and clearing has been done around the levee systems. We herped an area that previously produced LA milks, blue racers, texas rats, and speckled kings, plus garters and water snakes. All we found were a ground skink, a young five lined skink, and a green anole LOL!! Oh yeah, a non native house gecko as well!!! Its amazing how much manmade cover, or lack of, can influence field success. I am sure there are still a lot of herps in the area, but they are probably using much less easily accessible natural cover as opposed to the once prominent manmade cover near the water sources that were also abundant with food sources. At least we spent a few hours in the field flipping and poking, and that helped alleviate the herp jones I've been itching at LOL!! Hopefully after Easter conditions will improve! I am not sure if this was an influence on our success or not, but a cold front came through later that evening with rain and temps dropping back down into the low 40's. Its getting closer buys and girls!! I guess we just need to be more patient LOL!!
Good luck to all on their upcoming herping trips!!
KevinM
