Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested to know how many herpers out there through the years have had multiple "multiple alterna nights" on Juno Road. For the record, my deceased son and I back in 2004 while he was still living scored three alternas on Juno in the same night - all three at or near the S-curve. The year my son passéd away (2007) we had another multiple alterna night with one at Bakers Crossing and the other five miles north of Bakers. Parenthetically, last year one of my other sons and I found a female gravid alterna phase at the S-curve which laid 6 fertile eggs, all hatching out in good shape. One of them was very odd- it had an unbroken brown (not red or orange) dorsal stripe running from the nuchal area all the way down to the vent. Any others who have had or know someone who had multiple alterna nights on Juno please chime in!

In 1983, I saw 11 Alterna on Juno but only one night did I see two on the same night. I think it was June, the night of the full moon. I saw the first one just north of bakers right at sun down and the other one about 13 miles north at about mid night. Never saw two in one night on Juno after that but I have seen multiples on the river rd more than once.

Facebook has made these forums pretty much obsolete. One would think that the owner of the site would make some changes that would allow for easier sharing of pictures. I estimate that traffic on all the forums is down 75 % Sucks, cause this could've been a cool thread. I've heard of a few nights where multiple alterna have been found on Juno.

Only found a DOR on Juno at the 6 mile cut. Only multiple alterna night i've had was on 277. Hoping for a multiple alterna night next weekend.

Chris

Comstock Area:
In the mid 90's I caught 2 alterna's on Pandale paved(last week of June). The female was caught about 11:00pm. We drove Pandale north for a while and came back to the exact spot and caught a male almost exactly 1 hour later. They produced 8 good eggs that year and for the next few years. Both animals were large 35" . I'll have to see if I have some pics of them. Both were very nice light Blairs. I collected Juno Rd 4 or 5 times from 94 to 03 and never caught any alteran's. All we saw were desert kings, atrox, suboc and a few other things. Then I got to busy for the hobby.
I just got back into graybands about two years ago and picked up a nice pair of Rick Blair x-mass mnt locale. They just drop 9 good eggs.
male

Female

eggs

This was one of the females I held back from the 2nd clutch of eggs from the Pandale pair. Never bread her, I gave her to a friend after keeping her 13 years(2010). She ended up being darker than the parents. She was almost 4' long (big female).I know the bedding isn't the greatest but she did ok on it.

if you caught 2 on pandale paved then that's only 4 I know of, including cliffs chisholms animals back in the 90s. How many nights of effort did you have to put into the paved? I know the road intersection with habitat is limited.

Thanks,

Steven Owens

My buddy and I normally would spend about 2 or 3 night in Comstock at the Casablanca Motel. From there would drive Juno Rd half the night if we saw not much moving we would head down US 90 to Pandale. I believe that’s what we did that night so we ended up at Pandale at about 11:00pm(if my memory severs me right I think it was about 11.9 miles from US-90 maybe 13. something?)(I have it written down somewhere). We were going so fast we had to drive right over the female and turn around. She didn't even move. Then we drove down the road about 30 minutes and then turned around and drove back. We caught the male in the exact spot approximately one hour later. We spent the rest of the night till about 3:30am maybe 4:00am crushing that spot to see if anything else turned up. We went back the next day and took a lot of pics of the habitat. I sent my buddy an email to see if he ever scanned the pics. I have them somewhere still. I'll scan them when I have time and post later.
We would then head west through other Gray Band habitat and eventually end up at River Rd and spend a few days. We normally would not collect more than about 5 nights total. We spent a lot of days driving 90 to 100mph to get to all the spots with the limited time we had to collect. Last story…. in 2003 we collected River Rd and it rained that night (late June). We saw over 50 snakes that night but no Gray Bands. About everything you can imagine.
I haven't been back since

Craig

Oddly, the first of the two alterna that I have ever collected came off of Pandale Paved back in the early 70s. If memory serves me correctly it was about 12 miles north of Hwy 90. It wa not what today I would consider as being good alterna habitat. I was not looking for alterna....heck back then I didn't even know hardly what they were. I was on Pandale paved looking for suboc. In the 40 odd years that have passed I have only heard for a couple of other being found on Pandale Paved, but I don't really consider myself to be a alterna guru either.
-----
Gerald Keown
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research
www.southwesternherp.com

I would say your multi alterna night is the exception to the rule, i would assume precip/frontal activity generated the high movement on the road, but I would love to hear your theory on it. I hunted the Juno many many nights back in the early 90s and only found 1 live and 1 dor. Granted my methods were lacking back then but that's another conversation.

Congrats on all the Juno luck! Some of the neatest looking animls that alterna country can provide.

The three-alterna night (2004)was on the first day of summer. When the sun set it was hot - 95 degrees - and no wind nor clouds in the sky. The first was found at dusk and the other two were found at a little past midnight. These were the only snakes we saw all night!!! The two alterna night (2007) happened on the first day of summer also, but that night was different. A storm front to the west caused the barometric pressure to lower. As the winds began to blow, there was a lot of movement of all kinds of snakes for about an hour and a half, beginning near midnight. One alterna was found at 12:15, the other about twenty minutes later.

Strange that a lot of nights in Val Verde County, are "alterna only" nights and that's all you see. Many people have "indicators" but in Truth the snakes are always there. Just a matter of doing all you can to increase chances and cover the right area at the right time.

Whatever you guys are doing is definitely right on and I would keep it up. Lord knows I have a love/hate relationship with that road.

Take Care,

Steven Owens

As far as our experience has been, all 7 of the graybands we have caught on Juno have been either on the first day of summer or the day before and the day after. That time seems to be "ripe" as long as there has not been a monumental downpour within twenty-four hours or a cold front moving through.

Unfortunately this is the only Juno we have ever found. Found it at 8-8:30 am very overcast and just a small shower. It had just been hit probably in the last hour or so before we got there.

Chris

That's heartbrake at its worst right there. Only thing worse was when hubbs backed up on juno to grab one and ran over it himself. Unforgivable! LOL

Always loved juno road. Found a total of 7 alterna there but no multiple nights. Really miss the place. One guy who may have had multiple catch nights was Keith Amalong. I remember him being very fortunate back in 90 and 91 hunting the s curve on foot. He found some beauties. id say your the only other person with 3 in one night. Thats awesome!!!!!! BA