Just noticed that these will list in reverse order so if you want to follow the story from the start you should start at #1...
)
Found a few more Banded Geckos and several DOA's mostly Sidewinders and called it a night at about 3:30 AM, just pulled over on a side road and slept for a few hours and then headed back to the mountains for one more quick search around to see what I could find. As I was driving back into the mountains I noted to myself that I hadn’t see one atrox on this trip and that is fairly unusual, not even a DOA, not sure why as usually they are just about as abundant as the Sidewinders, probably just an anomaly...
Arrived in my final search area around 10:00 AM, was already getting warm but I thought I'd give it a few hours anyway. I found an area where someone had dumped a load of concrete and wood and it looked promising so I started flipping, there was a large piece of plywood that I flipped over and underneath the plywood was a large piece of burlap, I peeled back the burlap and didn't see anything immediately, I was just about to drop it down when I noted a slight movement and there, almost perfectly blended in to the substrate was a pair of Night Snakes (Hypsiglena torquata). They were coiled up right next to each other, both trying to figure out I am sure, who turned the lights on! They are really neat little snakes, vertical pupils, very docile, I took a couple of photos on a pure background as they were really difficult to see on the natural substrate...
They sure are tiny!
Two boards later I found my last herp of the trip, another Crotalus viridis! Another yearling, very calm and photogenic!
Here's the habitat:
So, that's my long (and exhausting) 3 day weekend. Hope you enjoyed my journey, totals for the weekend were:
Colorado Desert Sidewinder - 8 (3 DOR)
Southern Pacific Rattlesnake - 3
Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake - 1 (DOR)
Red Diamond Rattlesnake? - 1 (DOR - badly mutilated)
Spotted Leaf-Nosed Snake - 6 (4 DOR)
Western Long-Nosed Snake - 1
Colorado Desert Shovel-Nosed Snake - 1
San Diego Gopher Snake - 1
Night Snake - 2
California Kingsnake - 1
Glossy Snake - 2 (1 DOR)
Granite Spiny Lizard - many
Coastal Whiptail Lizard - many
Side-Blotched Lizard - many
Desert Banded Gecko - 8
Fence Lizards - tons
California Toads - many (one large adult)
Take care and good 'herpin'...
Brad
