PITVIPERDOUG, his son, my buddy Cesar, and I all went out yesterday. First stop was South Mountain Park, then onto the east side of AZ to see what was moving on a cloudy, fairly humid day.
We got to the park around 12:30ish and stayed there for a couple of hours. Doug had never seen a chuck up there, so I figured since they're extremely plentiful that would not be a chore. We saw plenty of tree lizards and uta, but we didn't see any chuckwallas yet. While walking, we scared a juvenile earless lizard out of hiding, which proceeded to run under my foot. Seizing this opportunity, we snatched him up for pictures before letting him go.
After seeing the little guy off, I took the opportunity to snap a couple pics of uta and urosaurus.
After hiking for a little while, I finally happened upon a chuck that didn't see me right away, so I was able to take a shot before he ducked for cover.
We happened upon a few more of them after that. It was getting warmer by this time.
While we were taking pictures of him, a park official came down and told us to get off the rocks. He said we're supposed to be "on the trails" only. I explained I have NEVER heard this before, and he said that's always been the rule in the park. Can anyone confirm this? Even if it is true, I've hiked all over the place there and nobody has come over to harass me about being on the rocks before. Anyhow, he helped all of us find a life-lister as we found this when we got back to the trail. Ahem.. "Doug" found it. He's been holding that over my head since yesterday. 
The park ranger or whatever he was wouldn't allow us to "disturb" it, so those were the only pics I could get of it. It was the prettiest mitchelli I've personally seen.
By this time we stopped for a bite to eat and headed out east. When we got to our destination it was still fairly warm, but you could feel the chill that was coming. Road-cruising probably wouldn't be a good idea on this night. Instead, we flipped a few rocks. Yes I put them back. Anyhow, we found a few scorpions and centipedes. I *think* this is a striped devil?
I actually flipped this, which I have never done in my life.
Here's Cesar and I checking it out.
Later that night we did some road cruising. I was able to find a AOR Blackhead, but that's it for AOR. Found a DOR longnose as well. No crotes that night. We were going to hit a spot and flip some trash but that didn't happen. Doug's van broke down somewhere near Apache Junction (where the boards, etc are). His timing-chain apparently went out so he might be down and out for a little while. Had to be towed back to Glendale.
All in all it was a fun trip. Looking forward to next week once the work week's over.
Dave
