I saw a tremendous number of lizards during the day, hundreds of fence lizards, all of the granite rocks had Granite Spiny Lizards, quite a few whiptails and more Side-Blotched lizards than you could count. I took a trail that got me to the waters edge of the lake, there were a number of deer tracks along the bank which is always a good sign as it means that there usually isn't a lot of traffic in the area. Found a marshy area with a TON of juvenile California Toads (Bufo boreas halophilus) and one large specimen, photo here:
Here's the habitat:
The day heated up fairly quickly with the air temp being in the low 90's around noon, continued to see quite a few Sceloporus but nothing much else however the area seemed quite interesting and I am sure there are quite a few "exotics" to be discovered around here so I will be back, possibly even a few zonata locations...
) On the way back toward my parking area I was walking through a field of tall grass with tons of gopher holes and I was thinking that of course this would be a good location for a gopher snake, well, not two minutes later I heard a "snaky noise" to my right and saw a nice San Diego Gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer annectens) high-tailing it for an open hole, I am not sure who got who as I grabbed him and he immediately acted more like a racer than a gopher snake, repeatedly tattooing my arm to show his great displeasure with me grabbing him. However, unlike a racer, he quickly settled down and allowed me a few shots of him before heading down to hole he was trying to get to before I interrupted him...
More to follow...
