2012 Wood

The paddle season is coming to an end quickly.  Despite the new boat, I was late to get on the water this year.  I wasn't able to take her for a maiden voyage until midAugust.  Since then, we have paddled far and wide though, so I guess I have been making up for lost time!  In the past month, we have paddled six rivers, a few of them involving multiple trips.  Turtles have been fairly hard to come by, mainly because I have been trying for a couple county records, but I have still seen a few here and there.  This will be short on dialogue, but blessed in turtles!

Every shot in this series is in situ - I tend to leave these beasties alone!

A few of these turtles were notched, part of someones research study.  Another good reason to leave them as you see them and move on down the river quietly!

I have a few days off next week I might try to hit one of my nemesis rivers again.  It is sorta close to home, and I have now paddled it twice without seeing any turtles or any species.  Historically, woods should be present.  Unfortunately, I usually hit the river under poor conditions and don't give it a chance to work out.  Seems like this year will be no different.

BH

Oregon 2012

We recently flew to Oregon for a weddding in my family.  It was a great opportunity to catch up with my father's side of the family and spend a nice weekend with Molly and my dad.  Most people might not find Portland to be all that exciting, and it might be way off the radar of most "herpers", but for a salamander enthusiast it was a dream come true!

The herping was limited by the above reasons, but I managed to make the best of a quick trip.  We drove to the coast for a few hours the first day, and enjoyed checking out the tidal pools and nearby streams.  Herping was a huge bust here.

I fooled around photographing some of the tidal pool creatures.

About this time a girl walked up to us yelling "WAR EAGLE!!".  She seemed a little excited to see a "fellow" Auburn fan in Oregon. Sadly, my father was sporting the shirt that was a gift from Brian.  He was completely clueless and couldn't figure out what she was saying or what it meant.  I kindly explained to her he didn't understand, and she proceeded to further educate him on Auburn etiquette.  I found the whole interaction rather humorous.  Crazy war eagle stuff...

The next day, we got to the gorge in the early afternoon after picking up a college buddy to be my "guide" and a quick bite to eat.  We hiked a couple trails he picked out.  Wes is a "nonherper" but is a biologist type and enjoys rustling around for herps when given the chance.

That pool yielded nothing unfortunately.

But I faired better at this one.

Unfortunately, I think they are all coastal giants and I missed out on Copes.  Coastal Giant Salamanders are some pretty cool beasties.  They get rather large, and are considered the largest terrestrial salamander of north america. Many of them actually retain their "larval" form, despite being sexually mature, which is known  as neotony or paedomorphism.

Coastal Giant Salamander Dicamptodon Tenebrosus

Wesley Snipes - Rocking it out!

Wes and I decided to explore farther up a creek that led away from the trail.  I was rewarded with the first frog of the day - Northern Red-legged Frog Rana aurora.

Farther up I explored a seepage that trickled down a rock wall and flowed into a smaller pool in the creek.  I spotted a tail sticking out of moss and was surprised and excited to find this adult Dicamptodon up on the rock face.

The transformed adult form of the Giant Salamander

Wes also found a second Red-legged frog in the edge of the pool.

The next trail we hiked led back to another waterfall.  This pool was very deep and large, and hard to hunt without actually going swimming.  I checked out some of the pools downstream where the water flowed out of the rock walls, as well as some other seepages in the area.  I quickly turned up another 4 or 5 Dicamptodon without much effort.  I flipped another rock and was scooping out a Dicamptodon when Wes said "Hey, here's a frog too!" I had evidently overlooked it. He picked it up and at first glance said he thought it was something different.  Being a bit of a salamander nut, I was still focused on my quarry, until he mentioned it had a tail.

Coastal Tailed Frog Ascaphus truei

These frogs are pretty stinking cool.  The "tail" is actually an organ for internal fertilization, much like a penis. These are the only Genus of frogs in the world that fertilize internally.  It is also thought that they do not vocalize!

Our few hours of hunting unfortunately came to a quick end after this.  I was pretty happy to turn up what I did, but was a little bummed out that I missed Rhyacotriton. I also missed out on the other terrestrials, despite flipping a bunch of logs and rocks along the trail and stream edges. I am hoping it was just due to my timing at the end of August during a drought, but who knows.  Just more reasons to head back, and hopefully soon.

BH

Kayak

I finally was able to put my kayak in the water a couple weeks ago.  Oh what a great time it was!  Super busy with work and travel, but I will have stuff to share soon.  I hope to get on the water two or three more times next week as well!

BH

Roadcruising Riffs: Trampled By Turtles

Thanks to Brian for pointing this out.  Awesome in so many ways.




Trampled By Turtles-Wait So Long.

War Eagle! A journey to Alabama

My brother Brian started his graduate studies in the Guyer (Herp) Lab at Auburn University last fall. Whenever I speak with him, he goes on and on about how awesome Alabama (the state) is.  Since I can't even pick Alabama out on a map (haha), I have remained skeptical.  Why would I want to go visit such a crap hole?  After much persuasion, he finally convinced me to fly down this summer so that my education in Alabama, and it's herps, could begin in earnest.

I had a layover in Atlanta get delayed a bit, so I ended up getting in pretty late.  I met Brian near the camping location in one of the national forests after picking a DOR scarlet snake  off of the road.  This was a bummer, as I am still hoping to find my first one of these.

Brian was happy to see me, proof of how miserable the south must be, and ready to show my some stuff.  Sadly, he had just found a couple Pine Barrens Tree Frogs Hyla andersonii, and he didn't want to fight the swamp go back out there so late.  This was one of my top targets.  It sounded far away though (it wasn't) so I let him convince me to put it off for another night.  In his defense, it was super late, and he had herped all day and looked pretty gassed. We poked around a swamp for a few minutes, and I spotted my first cottonmouth of the trip.

We also photographed this cool pickerel hanging out in the swamp.

As a further testimate to Brian's fatigue, he passed over these 2 DOR southern copperheads without even braking.  They would have been a lifer, but alas no live ones were found throughout the trip.

There were numerous species of frog calling at our campsite.  Cricket frogs, green treefrogs, squirrel tree frogs and bird-voiced treefrogs were all chorusing, but I was only able to locate a green for photos.

The next day Brian and I got up early and explored some long leaf pine hoping for gopher tortoises and eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. We found plenty of tortoise burrows, but no one was home at the time.  I flipped this narrowmouth toad under a shaded log.

And Brian dipnetted some tadpoles out of a pond.  We think this is Hyla gratiosa.

We flipped some scorching hot tin, and explored another area without much luck.  After turning back out on one of the side roads, we saw a lumbering dome shelled turtle crossing the road ahead of us.  Immediately we thought it was a gopher tortoise, but we were even more stoked to realize it was a chicken turtle!

Deirochelys reticularia

We were both very excited about this turtle as it was a new species for both of us.  Next, Brian showed me a nice river where map turtles were common.  The water level and current were way up due to recent rains and most of the snags seemed to be underwater.  We started making the swim up stream, and immediately spotted the king of the river basking.

I went back for my camera and my dry bag so I could photograph him from the water.  He let us get fairly close before dropping into "our" domain.  Oh well, we continued on of course.

We soon spotted our quarry, a couple young male Graptemys ernesti.

While photographing these from the river in the strong current, I accidentally dipped my dry bag into the water.  It was easily emptied out, but it became a "moist" bag.  It kept my camera from being dunked in the river after that, but unfortunately my ancient Nikon D200 couldn't withstand the little moisture in the bag.  The weather-proofing has long since been obsolete thanks to numerous cracks, bumps and bruises over the years.  The screen fogged up, and the sensor died on me shortly there after.  This was rather unfortunate, as Brian captured one of the handsome turtles for pictures.

At this point I was ok with how things stood.  I was pretty bummed my camera died on this awesome trip, but I was due for a new one anyway.  I won't go into my frustrations with Nikon, but I will say I have always had the stance that I would rather risk getting the camera a little wet and muddy for pictures, then leave it back in the car out of fear.  Maybe taking it snorkeling in rivers, "moist" bag or not, is on the extreme end of the spectrum, but I really like in situ turtle pictures.  For me it was worth it.

We checked some traps that Brian had set and turned up our lifer Amphiuma and loggerhead musk turtles.  Now I am missing my camera... Brian also flipped a handsome dusky salamander.

Desmognathus sp. photographed the next day

It was late in the afternoon, and Brian was going to attend a friends BBQ.  We tried finding me a camera at Walmart, without much luck.  I called a Best Buy, 2 hours away and tracked a camera down that I was sorta happy with, a Nikon D7000.  I made the drive with plans to meet Brian at dusk.

I quickly tried to learn the camera and set it up on the way to our meeting point.  A few minutes after setting out on our hike, we found our quarry.  The endemic Alabama Red Hills Salamander Phaeognathus hubrichti.  To say I was excited was an understatement.  The salamanders have a really neat natural history and hang out in their burrows waiting for prey to walk by.  They are rarely, if ever, seen out of their burrows.    You typically just see them like this.

But persistence pays off sometimes, and Brian may thank me someday.  He was a little tired at the time. These salamanders are actually quite large.

I tried to convince him to make a run for Hyla andersonii but he wasn't having it.  We tried some roadcruising without any luck, and I was left wondering what happened to all the copperheads from the night before.

The next day we set out to a spot with more amphibians in mind.  Brian spotted this cooter basking on a log.

Pseudemys sp.  I don't remember our consensus, concinna maybe?

It took us quite a few dips this time of the summer, but the leafpacks produced another really cool salamander, the waterdog.

Necturus sp.

We also scored a loggerhead musk turtle, Sternotherus minor.

Checking the amphiuma traps again yielded a few more loggerhead musk turtles, but no amphiumas today.  No pics for me.

Brian flipped this young cottonmouth under a log.  

Agkistrodon piscivorus

We explored the stream pictured, and Brian found, then lost a red salamander, as well as a lesser siren!

Siren intermedia

Who knew Alabama had such salamander diversity? And we barely scratched the surface...

The aptly named Dwarf Salamander Eurycea "quadridigitata" was tiny.

Desmognathus conanti

Desmognathus sp.

We had a long drive to the coast ahead of us, so we started planning our exodus.  I was desperately trying to figure out a way to fit andersonii into the picture, but Brian was biting.  One reason to go back...

We cruised a bit, and found this heart breaking sight.

Gopher Tortoise

And a "grey" rat.

Brian's job for the summer was helping catch, mark and monitor turtle populations.  I was lucky enough to take along for a couple days of trapping.  We set out on the boat bright and early to catch some turtles, something I had very much been looking forward to!

Some showed evidence of their tough existence in the brackish water.

We quickly pulled a number of our quarry out of a few traps - Pseudemys alabamensis.

Handsome turtles indeed.

Pseudemys floridana were also very numerous.

Sadly, around this time I had a camera malfunction - yes the new camera.  It was completely my fault and it really tore me up.  Ask me about it in person some time.  I want to apologize again to Brian, and thank Brian, Greg and Jim for putting up with me.  I paid for my actions dearly when Greg snorkeled up our one and only Alligator snapping turtle, Macrochelys temminckii.  Reason number two to return...

Insert gator snapper here.

The camera was nursed back to health for some night time festivities, and after an extensive search, we were able to spot a couple chorusing barking treefrogs, Hyla gratiosa.

Hyla squirrela

The next day was more checking of traps.  We turned up Pseudemys alabamensis, floridana, and concinna.

Floridana, alabamensis, floridana

alabamensis

We tried our hand at snorkeling again without any luck on Macrochelys.  We again turned up a ton of loggerhead musk turtles.  It was interesting boating around this river though.  All the docks had mail boxes and were decorated by their team or motto of choice.  There were numerous "WAR EAGLE" and "ROLL TIDE" signs everywhere you looked and I enjoyed hearing a bit about the history behind the war eagle motto.

Back at the dock, I flipped a log to turn up an eastern glass lizard, Ophisaurus ventralis.

A nasty set of clouds were moving in, but I desperately tried to take advantage of some daylight and drive up a ways to take a shot for Delta Map Turtles.  This was massively unsuccessful.  I returned to basecamp and we took a shot at roadcruising.  We saw a few DORs, but this was mostly a bust as well.  We got back around 11pm.  I showered and packed up in time to take an hour nap.  Around 2 am I woke up to drive to Pensacola for my 6am flight back to the midwest.  Remind me not to do that again.

All in all, it was an amazing trip.  Alabama is truly a special place and I can't wait to return.  I have some unfinished business, and maybe if I stop being an idiot Brian will invite me back.  I am already penciling it in for next summer though!