Josh's Outdoor Adventures: 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: