This year so far

My first snake of the year was also the same snake as the last snake of 2010. I found him on December 28th and then missed him completely in January, I was bummed about that, but he was found in February.

Lucky

There were some others out through March:

Rusty



Lucky again, but out from the bush





Crotalus viridis

Energizer

Desert Striped Whipsnakes Coluber taeniatus taeniatus were out

Bill and I were out hiking and he spotted this whipsnake:

It watched us and seemed to be intrigued by the movement of Bill's tripod





In fact right after this shot it jumped down right in front of Bill, then realized what was going on and bolted into the rocks



Southwestern Fence Lizard Sceloporus cowlesi

Bill got a tip on where to find some leopard frogs nearby so we took off to the super secret locale and found these:

Northern Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens)

We also saw two fence, two salamander larvae and an unidentified fleeing snake.

Nikki and I went out to a check out a new locale and found these:

Eastern Side-blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana stejnegeri)

Both individuals were very dark in color for the species probably due to the lava


Yesterday I was driving out of town for work and the night before I saw something in the database about a road and saw that road, so I turned around and cruised. The entry said something about ac, so I looked and found some boards, but no herps under them. I continued on the road since it paralleled the road I was taking and then came upon this:

Sonoran Gopher Snake Pituophous catenefir affinis

at least 4 1/2 feet long

beautiful pattern

I was driving and saw a sign that had fallen onto the ground, I flipped it and found three Great Plains Skinks (Plestiodon obsoletus). They disappeared into the grass before I could get a picture, but I came back later and got this video:

Here is a still from the video:


I also got a trip to Bosque del Apache as well:

I saw an assortment of birds and turtles:

American Coot

Big Bend Slider (Trachemys gaigeae gaigeae)

Red-tail Hawk



Cormorants

Big Bend Slider (Trachemys gaigeae gaigeae)

Great Blue Heron

Big Bend Slider (Trachemys gaigeae gaigeae)

Bald Eagle eating something







I started home and almost hit these:








Well, that's the start of the year! Thanks for looking!
Josh