Hi Eve,

Thanks for the reply. It makes a lot of sense. Today my son and I went herping in the 4 Corners area and had a wonderful day. We spotted around 15 collareds thanks to some wonderful tips from Barney Oldfield on where to look. The males were all magnificent -- bright blue bodies with yellow bands on the back and white/gray heads with yellow on the nose and eyes. The interesting thing was that out of the total of 15 only 3 were females. 2 out of the 3 were showing gravid coloration and were much more wary than the males. I guess the females are probably laying low waiting to lay their eggs. On our 2 herping excursions (Albuquerque and the 4 Corners) we spotted almost 30 collareds with only 3 females being seen. All in all, we loved every minute and were really amazed by the variety of collareds to be found in New Mexico.