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OUT OF HIBERNATION!
A 3-week photographic tour of the United States with one of the formost experts on Reptiles and Amphibians targeting those endemic animals that are out and about this time of the year. Journey with Dick and his wife Patti as they visit some of the country's zoos and aquariums as well as the backtrails and woodlands for close-up shots of our elusive native herps.
Day 3 - Got to Louisville Zoo at 0830— drove around area and tried to find breakfast somewhere nearby but ended up buying melon at Kroger’s. Got to the zoo at 10 am and met Bill Quatman and Gary Johnson; I’d met Gary some 15 years ago and to my delight he remembered our meeting! We photographed a female Kirtland’s snake, who obligingly flattened her body in a typical defensivepose for us. Left them at 1:30 and headed for slough preserve near Henderson KY. Met Mike Morton and his wife, Connie, and a little bit later Ed Laurent and Kimberly Andews came in with a few copper bellied water snakes to photograph. We had dinner with them and departed, hoping to get maybe an hour’s start on the leg to Lansing. Day 4 - Headed for Lansing this morning, stopping along the way at Pokagon State Park. It’s named for two of the last leaders of the Potawatomi tribe. We were greeted at the nature center at the park by Elton Leedy, a part-time ranger, a retired accountant. He showed us the small microphone at the bird feeder, which fills the nature center with the chirps of birds and argumentative shrills of the squirrels. He also let us photograph an eastern hognose and a Blanding’s turtle, and told us about a nature trail behind the center. We followed the trail and found some garter snakes sunning themselves on a cleared area near the parking lot. Day 5 - This day dawned cold and gray so plans to look locally were stymied. We checked the forecast and headed northward towards Torch Lake, a fingerling lake near the upper end of Lake Michigan. Weather there warm, 70 degrees, and sunny. We visited some small refuges in the area and looked for herps to photograph. We were joined by Jerry Grieve, who works for DNR. We looked under logs in dry places and wet places, under rocks, concrete blocks, odd branches and fallen leaves, and were thoroughly skunked until Dick found a baby milksnake under a railroad timber.Barely seven inches long, the milksnake lived up to the milksnake tradition of staying quiescent in my fingers, then nosing along my hand and seizing a mouthful of skin and chewing. Since his entire mouth was maybe a half-inch long when fully gaped, he did little damage, but I was impressed that he was trying to tell me he was a formidable opponent. We photographed him and turned him loose. We also found four garter snakes, all rather dark and indistinctly patterned. The one we photographed lived up to the garter snake tradition of musking in a copious fashion. Once we turned him loose we used one of the waterless soaps to clean our hands. I don't know if our hands were clean, but alt least the odor was diminished. Day 7 - Went to SW Michigan today. Picked up Pete en route and headed toward the
Day 8 - Went to Toledo Zoo today. I liked the conversion of the big cats cages best-those big iron-barred cages are now part of the Carnivore Café, and the diners are seated on the outside of the building, inside the iron-barred cages, for the public to view. Good aquarium and snapping turtle; good reptile house and king cobra. Children on field trips everywhere and bouncing off of everything, Toledo Zoo obviously understands marketing- food places and souvenir shops, all themed, are near every major exhibit area. Day 9 - Met our companions for the next leg of this trip at 6:30 a.m. at Miller's ferry, at Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie. Norm, Regis, Dick and I ferried to South Bass Island, and from there went to Stone Laboratory on Gibralter Island. Photographed a wonderful variety of watersnakes, garter snakes, a DeKay's snake and a fox snake that obviously thought the process ought not to include him.. Vied for heart failure with a female duck that came flapping madly off her hidden nest when we surprised her. Afternoon of Day 9 - We checked out some trash fairly near the road at this stop, and finally saw a blue racer-but he was in shed so no photos! Our last stop for the day and my last stop on this trip was at a privately owned series of fishing ponds. We were hoping for fox snakes, but saw instead a queen snake and a garter snake. Maybe just a little too late in the day for any activity, but the sky's still light up here at 9 PM! We headed for our hotel about 7 PM; just enough time for a shower before dinner, and then we tried to sleep. Dick will head for PA tomorrow with Norm and Regis. I'll head for my 5:30 am flight-and home-- instead. I'll include the fox snake, Dick and Norm, Regis and Matt, and the secretive duck photos with this paragraph.
Day 2 - Delighted to see John Benn trundling up to TN Aq. He had in tow a laptop and a digital camera—something I’ve wanted to try out for a while. I planned to wait on the camera until I read the instructions, but the Venom exhibit was too much to resist. Having learned that the olive sea snake can detect light with its tail, I was eager to see the sea snakes in the exhibit--- saw Laticauda colubrina (I think) and took a video of it with the digital (nice camera!). Also took photo of gaboon viper and figured that thisexhibit, which is a travelling exhibit, surely comes with its own set of curators.
Patti
southern part of the state. First site,nada except a black swallowtail, left fluttering in the wake of a passing car. Second site, nothing again. Blue racers just aren't out. Third site, checked resident box turtle population and found two that Jim hadn't marked. Dick saw the nose of a blue racer, peeking out of a mouse burrow, so at least that tells us where some of them go in cold weather. I found a lead-back red-backed salamander, which I photographed and returned to its homesite. Plenty of tent caterpillars in the tree canopy here-their steady production of droppings sounds like a soft rain in the leafbeds, but a lot less aesthetic.
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