Some Habitants of Michigan Fens

Don't expect any herps in this post.  I am on a steadily lengthening string of failures. 

On a trip early in the year I found an excellent looking marl fen than I know has wonderful herps hiding in it.  I have struck out on a few trips to the area, but the habitat is so wonderful I manage to forget the lack of success.  It wasn't a surprise then when checking out the fen a few weeks ago I managed to stumble into a nice area with a couple Michigan carnivorous plant species.

I usually see the pitcher plants at most of the bogs and fens I check out. 

Sarracenia purpurea

 If you look closely in the bottom left though, you will see something I don't often see...

Drosera rotundifolia

I ended up see hundreds of little sundews littered around the property, mixed in with the pitchers...  score!

No massasaugas or spotted turtles today, but Michigan has many other natural wonders to keep you busy even on the slow days.


BH

Spring Travels II

The next day I made a trip a little farther away to try and locate a species that had thus far eluded me in Michigan - the spotted turtle. Cid and I headed out bright and early, picked up another companion, David, on the way and we pulled up to the spot midmorning. The fen was already alive with frog calls and it only took 5 minutes before I heard David call out that he had the first spotted turtle of the day. All of the pictures will show the animals in situ in an attempt to showcase this colorful turtles remarkable camouflage ability.

Spotted Turtle Clemmys guttata


David quickly mentioned he had another one as well, and this had a neighboring ribbon snake. Both are photographed as found.



I found the next two, including this juvenile from last year.





Another couple turtle lovers joined us and we found a few more before calling it a day, with a total of 8 turtles.



Some habitat of the fen.


We chatted for a while before moving to the next spot. David and I moved farther away to another fen, but our partners stayed local. Both groups ended up finding a bunch more turtles.

The new fen


It took about 15 minutes this time but I managed to come up on a pair of spotteds mating. The broke apart quickly and dug into the sand.




There were tracks in the marl sand.


A third turtle, not shown here, was later spotted checking us out nearby. We started to move on again. I was hiking a small run with Cid following commands well and staying at my close rear. Like many times before I heard a faint buzzing a little behind me. Unlike all those other times before, this actually was a rattlesnake. The first Massasauga that gave up cover by rattling.

Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake Sistrurus catenatus as found


Straight out of the burrow likely


Cid as always was an angel, and laid down for a nap during the photo shoot. It's hard work being a good field dog.



We split up again and found another small spotted a little bit away.

As found in the run.


I had kept my eyes out for carniverous plants all day, and I finally found a few pitcher plants.

Sarracenia purpurea


I noticed David was photographing something down low in the brush. It took me a while to get over there, and evidently I missed a prolonged courting show. I managed to snag a shot of the two lovebirds before they finally disappeared in the grass.


It was a fitting end to a great day. We also spent some time poking around an ephemeral pond on the hike out, but weren't able to turn up evidence of salamanders.