Bummed...

So I had a nice morning planned with a herping buddy and Cid. Late last night though we noticed a trail of blood around the house... Turns out Cid has a small growth on the back of one of his legs that had become ulcerated. I convinced Molly this did not necessitate a trip to the puppy emergency room (definitely could wait until the morning) but after being reminded I am not an animal doctor, we did call Uncle Lee, the family vet. He confirmed my suspicion that it is likely benign and recommended it getting checked out soon with the possibility of biopsy/excision.

So I canceled our hiking trip to take Cid to our local vet. He didn't seem to mind terribly much as he didn't know what could have been in store from him, and he enjoys visiting other puppies at the vet. As suspected, it is likely a benign tumor. It appears to be a histiocytoma, or abnormal proliferation of a certain type of cell found in the skin. They are commonly smaller than 2-3 cm, round, hairless and found on the face and limbs of young dogs. They usually regress spontaneously, but other important differential diagnoses include basal cell carcinoma, mast cell tumor and cutaneous lymphoma so having tissue for pathology isn't a bad idea. Surgical excision is usually curative and the incidence of recurrence is low.

So Cid is now scheduled for his second surgery on Mon. Shouldn't be much of a big deal and hopefully the little monster will be back in the field soon. The funny thing is the lesion is nonpainful and hasn't bothered him a bit. He would never even had noticed if we hadn't wrapped his little leg in an ace to keep him from bleeding all over the place.

Here's to a speedy recovery for my field partner!

Northern trip part duece

This is part 2 of a 4 day trip up north I took midAugust with my brother and my dog. If you missed it, you can read Part I here.

When we left off Brian, Cid and I had just finished booking it farther west to set up camp for the next two nights before it was too late. We found a nice campground right along the river we wanted to canoe and were able to walk in and grab a campsite for the next two nights without a problem. The campground was fairly wooded, and even had water pumps and latrines. We weren't too worried about missing out on a shower or two...

We set up camp in the dark, and my new tent went up without any issues. Unfortunately, pitching a tent in the dark meant we couldn't really scout the site. Needless to say out we picked a pretty terrible section of grass and our backs were less than ecstatic a few hours later. The fire was crackling soon after arriving and we quickly had a meal of beans and brats ready for consumption. Cid was already fast asleep near the fire and we didn't last too much longer.

We rose early with the dog and decided to go scout around for a place to hike for the morning. We found a nice trail and after only going 20 yards, Brian had already flipped a blue spot salamander and a redback salamander.


Our hike produced a good amount of wood frogs, some spring peepers, water snakes and green frogs. We again struck out one of the main purposes of the trip - wood turtles. The woods around the river were loaded with mosquitoes and we finally had to hang up our hats around noon. We decided to head back to camp to stock up on ice and inquire about a nearby canoe liverey. I decided to take the scenic route on our way back to camp for no good reason and a few minutes of delay later we were heading up the road to our campsite. About 100 yrds from the site, we noticed the domed shell of a turtle crossing the road. Sure enough, it was our wood turtle!



After a few quick pictures he wandered off into the fields between campsites.

We ended up canoeing again all after noon. As luck would have it, we were able to rent the last canoe in town. Unfortunately, this meant we were stuck canoeing with the drunk party-goers for the afternoon. Despite the lack of wildlife due to their noise, they frequently tipped their canoes and Brian and I were able to fish out a few cold beers as they floated by. We did see some fly fisherman, and were suprised to see very large and fast fish swimming in the clear water below us. Imagine our surprise to find out they were salmon! Turns out the great lakes have populations of atlantic, chinkook, pink and coho salmon. Sure enough, all of them are non-native fish. We do have native anodromous fish though, primarily the lake and brook trout.

We stopped after a few hours of pleasant canoeing and drunk people dodging for a quick snack and a swim.


Cid did not appreciate being gently placed in the water.


As the day wore on, we did see a few painted turtles, map turtles and water snakes. Despite the much decreased amount of wildlife compared to the river the day before, we all had a great time.

Camp that night was more of the same, great food, fire and company.


We turned in pretty early, around 9, and slept a little better this night. After a strong 12 hours of sleep we all rose, leisurely broke camp and headed on our way home. We managed to swing by another spot a few hours later. I was just using my delorme atlas to identify possible locations and decided to swing through some back roads. We crossed paths with a powerline cut, and despite Brian's skepticism, I convinced him to give it a go. It was very nice and open with some tall grass, sandy soils and even swampy areas back in the woods. I thought it looked excellent for a few of our target species. After a little while, I wandered up on this...


It only took checking a few slabs of wood to turn up a nice large blue racer in shed.


Soon after, I also spotted a ribbon snake crawling in the open.


Unfortunately, the heat was against us and we didn't see much more after that. Cid didn't mind though, and enjoyed the freedom and endless supply of sticks.


All in all, it was an awesome trip.

Long Weekend of Herping

My brother Brian headed up a couple weeks ago to spend a few days camping and canoeing with me and my dog Cid in northern Michigan. (You may have already seen a couple of the pictures below in a previous post entitled New Field Partner) Molly had plans to head into the big city, and the boys took advantage to get the hell out of it.

The trip started by getting together with some other like minded people at the Midwest PARC meeting. I felt bad just attending the first field trip day and skipping out on the actual conference, but I don't get days off very often, and we had big plans for the other days. PARC (Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation) is a wonderful organization dedicated to conservation of herps and their habitats. PARC is made up of people from all walks of life, and really works to break down barriers between different groups of people to try and encourage cooperation in working towards common goals. Membership is comprised of academics, zoo institutions, government, students and hobbyists.

The first day of the meeting was spent surveying the grounds of the nature center where the meetings were held. We showed up a little early to help set up some turtle traps to check at the end of the day.

Working hard to bait and set the traps.

Max, one of the interns, also got nominated to place the traps.

The rest of the day was a blast and turned up some interesting creatures. Despite it being the middle of August, Ambystomids were the most commonly found creatures. We turned up a bunch of Ambystoma laterale-ish looking creatures.

And one of the bigger highlights were a few tiger salamanders, Ambystoma tigrinum.


Other animals included painted turtles, wood frogs, spring peepers, american toads, eastern gartersnakes, brown snakes and tree frogs.


The next day, Brian and I headed out for our first day of canoeing. We had a decent drive ahead of us, and got off to a little later of a start than we wanted due to a great BBQ the night before.

En route we checked out a few nice back roads, and couldn't resist stopping to flip logs and objects of cover. Oddly, we totally struck out, except for these interesting eggs. I haven't seen any skinks in Michigan yet, but I am fairly certain this is the nest of a female Five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus. Unfortunately, she was not to be found nearby.


We pulled into the livery right around noon, and were on the river in a span of about 30 minutes.

Cid wasn't too excited about this canoe thing.


Right from the start we were seeing common map turtles. I convinced Brian that they were fairly easy to catch with the right technique, and he quickly decided to give it a go.

Here he is practicing the wrong technique. He needs to be even lower in the water.


And after his failure...


He had plenty of opportunities to refine his skill though. We ended up seeing 60+ map turtles and got our hands on quite a few.




Here are some of the fruits of our labor.

Same turtle as above, a couple seconds before the action picture.





We also managed to see one of Michigan's iconic turtles, the Blandings Turtle. Not as commonly seen actually on rivers, this one was found in a slow wide section of the stream.


After returning the canoe we tried to find some more spots to flip cover but ended up driving aimlessly for a while. We decided to head west to a new area, and set up camp there for the next two nights. This ended up being a good idea, but I will have to fill you in about that at a later date.

New Field Partner

We rescued a new puppy back in April this year. His name is Cid and he is a wonderful and welcome addition to our little family. I have always been a big dog kind of guy, but Molly was leaning more to the 5-10 lb range. We decided to compromise on a 40ish lb dog (he currently is about 35lbs and slowing down). We have a large apartment without a real yard so this actually worked out well. The rescue agency labeled him a lab/terrier mix, but we just call him our Detroit mutt. I have to admit he has a little bit of a pitbull look to him with his wonderful brindle color. Despite that, he is only friendly, maybe even too much so. Basically he is a terrible watch dog, never barks, and just licks anything that will pet him.

One of my main criteria in searching for a dog was ensuring that it would be very active and able to go on hikes with me in the field. I finally got to test the little guy out this past weekend on a 3 day camping/canoeing trip with my brother Brian. Cid is deathly afraid of water, but he tolerated the canoe well and was very good about hopping in and out of it on his own. His favorite activity was the hiking. We took a a few long hikes and he loved the freedom of running through the woods. He is great off a leash and never strays farther then 20-30 feet. He basically ran around sniffing and chewing on sticks. When we did catch some herps, he calmy laid down nearby and waited until we were done photographing the animals. I could never have wished for a better hiking companion.

The little herper in the making, with his turtle and snake, both now long chewed to bits.

He didn't start out too active - catching up on sleep with the snake.

Due to his fear of water, I decided to get a life vest for him in case he decided to leap off the canoe. He can swim, although his rear end tends to drop down a bit in his state of panic.

Sporting the vest, prior to the first trip. He knows something is up and is hanging back a little.

Still not sure about this... We had been canoeing for a while and he was as far from the water as the tall grass would allow.

Showing some love for his new buddy, Brian, prior to another attempt at swimming.

The aftermath of the swim, hating us...

Doesn't mind the canoe too much...

At camp the last night.

Enjoying one of the hikes, and his biggest stick of the weekend.

I can't wait to get him out for some more hikes in the future. I look forward to many finds with my new little buddy.