My buddy, Eddie Sanchez, and his son, Matt, came down from CO for a few days of herping and socializing. We decided to go out to the Santa Ritas last night. It was so hot, 102*F. when we left, that we just wanted to get in some higher elevations to try to cool off. But it was 96* at 4,000 ft. too. We did some walking on the road side and near a canyon that produced a skink (probably a Great Plains), a Regal Horny lizard, some tree lizards, and a couple lesser earless.
There was still some moisture in the soil and some puddles in the canyons. Frogs and toads were calling after dark from the larger canyons. We also saw a few frogs and toads in the road that we passed up and some that were Sonoran Desert toads and spadefoots that we stopped for.
I thought the conditions were fair for seeing something good, but was hoping for some precip still. All we saw was lightening until well after dark.
At first we were cruising at fairly low ele. when we ran over an object in the middle of the road that looked like it has some red in it. Trying to stop the car and get over and the fumbling that ensued getting out of the car let the small snake a chance to get away. We tried but didn't find it.
Then we drove another couple hundred yards and Ed yelled, "Snake in the road." He wasn't going to miss this one. I raced ahead with the car, stopped in the middle of the road, and Eddie scored his first ever tiger rattler. He took a bunch of pics and then we let it go.
We drove the higher ele. and didn't see anything, and finally came down to drive the lower els. for awhile. We found another tiger. The first had been a gravid female, the second a male. We escorted it off the road and said our goodbyes. Somewhere along the way we met a fella from St. Louis and his two young sons. I think they wanted to see some herps, but they kinda stayed in one area the whole time.
Anyway, when it got later, we decided to go look for kings at lower els. It started to sprinkle on our way to our new spot, so I was getting a little excited. The desert king is one of my target species to see on this trip, and luckily we saw a nice large king about a mile up the road on this location. I collected it to take home and examine and photograph.
On our second pass of this road we came upon another object that showed some red. This time it was in the middle of the driving lane and I couldn't stop in time, so I straddled it, stopped, and walked back. Ed was the first there and called out, "Coral." Needless to say, I did my "in shock" routine, wide-eyed, mouth open, mumbling incoherently.
A lifer for me and Ed and Matt, it was a gorgeous little coral 12-16 inches, that put on quite a performance for the cameras. It wiggled and stretched and coiled and struck. It held its tail up in the air. And when it struck it made little frog-like noises. I didn't know corals could vocalize? That was worth documenting. A superb speciman, I should've brought it home for more camera work, but unthinking, let it crawl off the road.
We didn't see any more snakes until we were almost home. Just before dropping off the others we found a DOR gopher on the pavement. It was around 2 ft. and pretty speciman. We called it a night around midnight.
PS: We saw some really great birds for you bird brains out there. One was a variable bunting, an AZ specialty Eddie said. Also, got my first canyon wren, which ED id'ed for me. Saw a cute Grambel's quail with her own covey of little babies crossing the road. Eddie got his first night jar. Oh well, birds are great when there aren't any herps around, LOL.
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Just looking, clicking, curious, studying, laughing, having fun, meeting cool folks, sharing. Live your dream, relax, smile, don't worry so much, love life. See ya there...TC.
