Wind River Ranch

Memorial weekend was the New Mexico Herp Society's spring field trip. This year we went to Wind River Ranch in Mora County. It was a good trip, we found a lot of critters, mostly common, but a few rarities, in New Mexico anyway. Here are some shots of the ranch:









When we first arrived I saw Dave & Jean and they said there was a pond with frogs in it nearby. We went to check it out before it got dark. We did not see any frogs, but we definitely heard them. We had dinner and then set up camp and called it a night.

The next morning we got up and hiked around a little, we made our way to the pond and saw this:

Canyon Towhee

At the pond we found:

Some sort of toad tadpoles

American Bullfrog

Then we hiked over to a barn and scared up a couple pigeons and then located this:

baby pigeon

I walked through the barn found some stuff to flip and scared up a Variable Skink (lifer!) but was unable to capture it or get any photos :(

We then walked across the property to some abandoned buildings and found some fence lizards:



Then we stopped by the pond on the way back and got some more pictures:









and then Chris found this big girl:




Wandering Garter Snake

We went back and got some water and rested a bit until Scott and his family showed up. Then we all went to the campground and herped around there for a while. Here is a habitat shot:


Here are some of the things we turned up:

Scott with a wandering garter found along the Mora river

We walked along the river and Scott found some black plastic and flipped it and began grabbing:

The plastic

3 wandering garters

My beautiful wife with one of Scott's garters

As Scott was measuring and sexing them I walked down river and found some more plastic and turned up these:

4 wandering garters. I had to beat Scott!

We went back to the pavilion and found some fence lizards running around. Dave noosed one of them and Pat started playing with it:



On our way back to camp we stopped at some rocky outcrops to see if we could locate any collared lizards:


We found one fence lizard.

We went road cruising and didn't find anything.

The next morning we went back to the pond with some nets and got some tadpoles:

tadpoles and minnows

We also went to hike to the top of the canyon on the north side of the river. On the way to the canyon we found this:

Plateau Striped Whiptail (lifer!)

Western Bluebird

On the way back, we crossed the bridge and heard a frog jump in and thought it might be a leopard frog, so we waited on the bridge in hopes it would return:

Nikki with the stuff

We were pretty tired and it was hot out so we decided to rest for a while. We were relaxing when Pat came in with a few finds:

Great Plains Skink

Lily with a garter

Sophie with a ringneck

Then Pat and his gang were all leaving so we got a group photo:



We decided to go check the spot where Pat had found the critters:

Fence Lizard

Prairie Racerunner

Chris and his ringneck

Nikki and the first snake that bit her, didn't break the skin

I flipped a railroad tie and chased down a great plains skink when Jean said "snake!" I reached over and grabbed it:

another garter...

us herping the junk pile

yet another...

That evening we went to the nearby ghost town:


















Some critters found:

juvie Great Plains Skink

another garter

We found 4 total, and saw another large skink.

That night we went to the pond with nets and caught some bullfrogs. While searching for bullfrogs we faound a couple of woodhouse toads as well as bullfrogs.

The next morning we photoed everything that was collected and later released:
















































Then we went to some ponds that Dave & Jean found and we saw these:

Red-winged Blackbird

more toad tadpoles

That was the trip! I hope you enjoyed the report!

Josh

A long sought after lifer...

I have been actively herping for over a year now and I have always wanted to find a blacktail rattlesnake. They are such beautiful snakes and I just wanted to see one. I even took a trip to the Gila wilderness where I was pretty much guaranteed a blacktail by Bill. I have looked in several areas and always came up short. Last Tuesday, Bill called me and told me he was giving me some gps coordinates. I said okay and he told me of a blacktail that was hanging out at those coordinates! It was like geocaching! It was great! That afternoon I made the climb to the rock where this snake hung out. About half way up, I saw a nice Chihuahuan Spotted Whiptail and thought I would take a picture of it and discovered just about the worst possible thing: the battery on my camera was dead. I couldn't believe it. Luckily I did have my cel phone and it does have a camera. I continued up the trail and saw some dirt that didn't look right and looked closer and discovered a cute little gopher snake:




Sorry for the crappy pic, cel phone pics are awful.


I got closer and the hike got more strenuous. The gps said I was there. I looked around for the area Bill had described and there it was. It was hiding under the rock in some grass and my cel phone was way below par. This was the best pic I could get:




You can barely pick out some of the pattern. Of course I had to get back to get better pictures. This was possible as the snake was opaque and Bill had found it at the same spot last year in the same condition and it stuck around until it shed last year.


Nikki and I went on Thursday and we found a collared lizard on the way up:




We fought through the bugs and the heat and made it to the rock. No snake. It was such a downer. I couldn't believe it. I was just about to give up because the bugs were flying into any opening they could find, when I decided to look into the crevice from ground level. I looked in and saw this:




There it was! Nikki was excited as was I. We had found it! We have now found all rattlesnakes in our home county! It was such an amazing feeling and then we returned down the mountain and were very satisfied!


Josh