Lost and Found

I was digging through some folder files and found images that never got edited or posted from the spring.

I had spent a morning wandering around one of the local metroparks, hoping for a sunning massasauga rattlesnake.  None were out today, but I enjoyed some of the other flora and fauna that were available for my camera lens.

There was a large group of hikers following these poor cranes around.  They are typically very common in the park.

Sandhill Crane and chic

A fellow photographer pointed out some flowering yellow lady slipper orchids, Cypripedium calceolus.  I didn't end up with the images I was hoping for.  It was a valiant first effort...

Painted turtles were enjoying the sun.  Unfortunately, I have yet to see blandings at this location.

This small garter snake was basking in the reeds.

Near the end of the summer, we spent an afternoon trying for an adult fox snake.  None were to be found, be we found 8+ freshly hatched juveniles in a very small location.

Nice flip!

This little red-bellied snake was spotted on a northern Michigan back country road.  I am frequently surprised by the small snakes I manage to spot and often wonder what I still miss...

My last field day I spent looking for saugas and racers.  I managed to find the small sauga I mentioned in this post, as well as few blue racers.

That about does it for the end of my season in Michigan... I may have had a miraculous late December outing, but it is a story for another day.  All in all, it was a pretty awesome year.  I think I met a few of my Michigan goals, and I had some great adventures out of state.  There is more exciting news I have to share  as soon as I can get the pictures loaded up.  Until then, Happy Holidays everyone!

BH

Michigan and our Love/Hate relationship

After having a few days off in which the clouds decided to dump rain all day with very cold temps, or even just flat out snow, I managed to drag myself out of bed and hit the field with a dismal weather forecast for the day.


Sun poked out though, the day grew bright, and fun was had by all.

Joy deciding whether a racer tastes like her usual fare of birds and squirrels.

More to come.  I need to wrap up a ton of Hawaii stuff too.  It's a great thing to have to much content to post.

End of the Season Blues

Loaded the dog up into the car early morning last week after an overnight shift and headed west to meet up with a fellow herper, Curtis. We had a fateful day last fall, one of my best in Michigan, and hadn't been able to hook up since. Cid was still healing up after his little surgery but I wrapped his leg up best I and away we went.

The first spot we hiked was very wooded and despite following a bunch of good sections of trail we never really found any open areas. We found a few Ambystoma laterale, Rana sylvatica, Pseudacris crucifer, and a garter or two. We next headed to another spot, and the day improved drastically.

The weather was perfect, low 70s and partly cloudy. Within an hour or so we turned up four blue racers. All of them were found out and about in a couple different fields. We also managed to scare up some Rana pipiens, Thamnophis sauritus, and another Ambystoma laterale or two.

Cid was back in rare form, and he was even responsible for turning up one of the racers. I noticed him stepping over a blue stick stretched out and realized that it wasn't a stick... Luckily he didn't really notice and the snake just sat there as well.

The first racer, as found basking.

The middle two snakes unfortunately slipped away in the grass quickly without pictures.

Here is the fourth snake, also found in situ right after Cid stepped over it.

It quickly spooked up a tree, and hung around for some excellent photographic opportunities.



I finished the day by getting stung by an insect of some sort. I thought it was a yellow jacket, but the stinger was still visible on my finger, with muscles visibly pumping more venom into me. Correct if I am wrong, but I thought this was a feature more common in the less aggressive honey bees? I should have taken a moment to snap a picture due to professional interests (I waited long enough to show Curtis) but instead flicked it away as the discomfort was growing tiresome.


The frosts are just around the corner...

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.