This is a pretty but pale Big Bend western diamond-back.
Where were the western diamond-backed rattlesnakes, Crotalus atrox? Jake and I began asking ourselves that question on our first night in Val Verde County, TX, and continued wondering throughout our 10 nights in West Texas. We were no closer to an answer on that 10th night than we had been on the first. We knew only that 14 months earlier (August 2014) we had seen more western diamond-backed rattlers than any other snake species. And that over the years I had found this to often be the case. We found diamond-backs from the time of night that the desert had cooled enough to allow snake movement until the wee hours of the morning when, if we looked eastward, we could see the first evidence of a new dawn. We found them crossing the roadway. We found them quietly coiled, as if basking, on the pavement. We even found them stretched fully out as they swallowed prey, often a kangaroo rat. In other words, there was no shortage of Crotalus atrox. It was other rattlers, black-tails, rock, and Mohave that we had been difficult to see.

But now, a year later, our findings were very different. It was mid-June and we were seeing very few of these big, usually feisty, rattlers. In fact during the 10 days we were in the range of the taxon we saw only 4 C. atrox . 3 were prowling and 1 was coiled in ambush position in a small cave in a low rock cut.

I do have to mention though that where we had seen western diamond-backs a year earlier, we were now encountering rock rattlers in fair numbers, many black-tails. and a few Mohaves. Although the reasons for this species shift remain unclear we actually found the tradeoff quite satisfactory. And I'm already wondering what next year's trip will bring?

More photos under the jump

Our trip had been replete with rattlesnakes. The roadways and rockcuts in the Big Bend area had offered up a western diamond-back or two, a few Mohave rattlers, many black-tailed rattlers and a sufficient number of mottled rock rattlers to keep things really interesting. We had found rock rattlers having pearl gray ground colors on some cuts, those having a bluish-gray ground color on other cuts. and Kenny had found and shown us one from a more westerly cut that resembled a banded rock rattler as much, or perhaps even more, than it did the mottled subspecies.

But the ones that most caught my attention had an olive-fawn ground color with faint pinkish overtones and warm brown irregular barring. In color they looked far more like the rock rattlers from the rather distant Davis Mountains than the populations nearest to the snakes at hand. And their colors camouflaged them more effectively than those of any of the other populations we visited.

Judge for yourselves how inconspicuous the warm overtones rendered these rattlers when they were lying quietly amidst the rocks and soils of their natural habitat.

For us the question quickly became how many had we overlooked rather than how many we actually saw.

More photos under the jump

While we sat in Study Butte eating the evening meal, the sky darkened. For the last hour or so lightning had been flashing east of us and we had heard a very occasional rumble of thunder. Suddenly the wind picked up and the outside was obliterated by a dust storm. Driven by the lusty gusts a self-opening tent scooted by. It was followed closely by a young lady attempting to recorral the errant canvas. Then quiet. The wind dropped, the tent was caught by the chaser, and a bolt of cloud to ground lightning followed immediately by a deafening clap of thunder--the desert storm was upon and around us. And as every herper knows, a desert storm of any significance (and even many of lesser impact) means amphibians. Amphibians emerge from nooks, crannies, and burrows to set up very temporary housekeeping in the newly formed, very ephemeral, desert pools.

While monitoring nearby rainfalls on his iPhone, Jake determined that the strongest storms had been about 50 miles away. So off we went, reaching the area a few minutes before sunset. It took just a few minutes to learn that almost every swale was in flash-flood stage and only a few more minutes to determine that huge pools now sat atop desert flats that had until only a few hours earlier been long parched. We knew then that our choice had been a good one.

By nightfall a few tentative anuran vocalizations were heard. Among the first to call were the Couch's spadefoots, Scaphiopus couchii. Shortly thereafter red-spotted toad, Bufo punctatus, had joined the spadefoots in chorus. By full darkness the voices of western green toads, Bufo debilis insidior, and Texas toads, B. speciosus, had been added and the roadway was fairly seething with all 4 anuran species.

It was a night that we would long remember.

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Another year of lyre snake failure for me!
So, what else is new?

After 50 years of unsuccessfully looking for this little opisthoglyph in Texas' Big Bend region if I had found one I would probably have keeled over from shock. Other searchers though -- mostly the participants of the "Sanderson Snake Days" event, were successful in finding a Chihuahuan lyre snake, Trimorphodon vilkinsonii, and at least one person found 2! In other words these little snakes were found on all sides of Jake and me, but we were never in quite the right position at the right time. For example:

Jake and I had slowly and repeatedly driven an area at which dozens of lyres had been found over the years. Then tiring of that routine we added an extra few miles to one cruise. When we returned, about 20 minutes later, we learned that not one but two of the snakes had been found in the 20 minutes we were gone. A day or two later, on that same trip we were again cruising and hoping. A friend from California was also cruising the road, he in search of gray-banded kingsnakes. He found no kings but watched a Chihuahuan lyre snake cross the road and disappear into the rocky abyss on the south side. We were about 10 minutes behind him and we found neither king nor lyre. You get the idea. We were totally ineffectual.

Well, at least Sky (who had a research permit for the taxon) let me photograph her find, and next year (2016), all things being equal, I'll give it another try. What the heck--even an old herper needs a goal.

More photos under the jump. >

Hatchling Reeve's turtles Chinemys reevesi usually have a yellow facial pattern
When I was a kid there used to be 5 and 10 cent stores--real ones where you could but things for 5 or 10 cents or more. Some of the stores were small, some were huge, and all were places of wonderment to a youngster. And among the wonders offered were the little "Japanese coin turtles" in the pet departments. These little dark-colored turtles would show up only periodically, usually after the supplies of "green turtles" (red eared sliders) and "gray turtles" (Mississippi map turtles) had been exhausted. I'm not sure how long it was before , or even how, I learned that the proper name for the coin turtle was Reeve's turtle, or that its scientific name was then Chinemys reevesi (today it is known as the Chinese pond turtle or the Chinese three-keeled pond turtle and has been reclassified as Mauremys reevesi) but learn it I did. But I do know that it didn't take me long to learn that these little 49c turtles seemed even easier to keep than the American species that they seasonally replaced.

I hadn't thought of a Reeve's turtle for several decades but for reasons unknown I began thinking of them a few weeks ago. It took a while to find a breeder of this species but thanks to the aquatic turtle classifieds on Kingsnake.com I succeeded and, yes, they had a few hatchlings (but sadly they were more than 49c each). But with that said, guess what the FedEx driver delivered to me this morning.

Now all I need is a tiny plastic turtle tank bedecked with a proportionately tiny plastic palm tree. Reliving childhood-- but just kidding about that old-timey turtle tank!

More pictures under the jump!

Hatchling Texas banded gecko Coleonyx brevisWhat a difference a little rain makes. Last year (2014) when Jake and I made a 12 day jaunt to Texas' Big Bend region in late August dryness had prevailed. We did well with herp-diversity but one normally often seen taxon, the little Texas banded gecko, Coleonyx brevis, had proven difficult to find. In fact, we saw only 4, 2 adults and 2 hatchlings, on the entire trip.

But on the June 2015 trip, on each of the several days allocated for nighttime road-cruising, we saw from 2 to 10 of the little geckos, more on the damp nights than on dry ones. It seemed that the sightings were back to normal in frequency.

The Texas banded gecko is actually a common little nocturnal lizard. When moving they tend to stand rather high on their legs and to wag their tail. They could conceivably be mistaken for a scorpion or a mouse when in the glow of headlights the lizards are seen darting across a desert roadway. Juveniles of both sexes and adult females tend to be the more prominently banded while the bands of adult males often have irregular edges and the overall pattern may be more reticulate.

In the time span we were in Texas we saw 20 or 30 of these delightful lizards. Seeing these helped transform the trip from merely mediocre to a resounding success.

For more pictures, click below.

There was that rather cloudy long ago morning in Portal, AZ when I was hoping to photo black-tailed rattlers, Crotalus molossus. I had looked and looked but had found none. Then, as I was about to give up an elegant trogon (then known as the coppery-tailed trogon) flew right over my head and alit on a nearby oak limb. I immediately decided a trogon in the viewfinder was a whole lot better than a non-existent rattlesnake. So off I went, my interest now focused on the rather uncommon bird.

Luckily I had managed to get just about near enough to take the bird's pic. There. Click. Got at least one pic. Deciding to try and get just one step closer, I stepped between two boulders, and BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Not good. Being wedged between two huge boulders was not an enviable position and when I looked down and saw the snake--a big angrily defensive black-tail, I realized how close I was to getting bitten. Have you ever heard of levitation. I levitated backwards over one of the boulders and somehow managed to avoid both a broken shoulder and what had seemed to be an inevitable envenomation.

But, a few minutes later (I never did get that closer trogon photo), still shaking, I did go back and photograph the snake. No sense in wasting a perfectly good photo-op!

"There' one!"

I slammed on the brakes, pulled a 180, and sped back to--to another rock. Another 180 and we were moving westward again. The last "turn" had brought the false sightings up to Five. Five times we had thought we had sighted a round-tailed horned lizard, Phrynosoma modestum, basking on the pavement and five times it had been a rock or a piece of flattened vegetation.

I had about brought the old car back up to 65 mph when Jake screamed again. This time I didn't turn, I merely stopped at roadside and told Jake "Go get it." He hopped out, ran back a couple of hundred feet, and stooped to pick up another "rock." But unless he was taunting me he usually didn't pick up rocks. Maybe--just maybe...

By the time Jake had returned to the car he was grinning from ear to ear. That last "rock" actually was the horned lizard we (and especially he) had wanted so badly to see.

We had failed to find a round-tail on the first 10 of the 12 days allocated to this 2015 trip to the Big Bend and had begun to wonder whether 2015 would replicate 2014's trip when we had not found the species. We no longer had to wonder. Success, finally!

Now to find my camera.

More photos under the jump...

It had been a very long day in West Texas, and it was past time to call it quits. Jake and I had just driven almost non-stop from our Florida homes and following an hour of shuteye had hit the road for a little r&r (herping). We had done pretty well, photographing a pretty male Baird's rat snake at road edge and an equally pretty mottled rock rattler on a roadcut before changing venues.

Now, at 3 in the morning, we had decided to call it a night and had headed back for the motel when a ring-tailed "cat" at roadside caught our attention. I slowed to watch the little mammal and was just speeding up when we saw a solfugid (sun spider) on the yellow center line. Photo time. As I stepped from the car I noticed a small snake that was lying quietly on the center line only a few feet from the solfugid. Immediately recognizable as a long-nose, Rhinocheilus lecontei, the little snake was as obviously different as it was recognizable -- it lacked even a vestige of the red pigmentation so typical of the species. It was merely black and white, anerythristic if you prefer.

What a great find at the end of a long and busy day.

More photos under the jump...

Having kept and bred Santa Cruz (Channel Island) gopher snakes, Pituophis catenifer pumila, for several years, I had become enamored with this smallest of the gopher snakes. Even though these snakes are of nervous demeanor and have an occasional tendency to huff, puff, and strike, their 28 to 34" adult size makes them an easy gopher snake to handle.

Restricted in range to two of California's Channel Islands (Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Island) there seems to still be a paucity of information on this snake's preferred habitats. However, it is probable that like other forms of the gopher snake, the Santa Cruz subspecies is a habitat generalist that utilizes most if not all of the varied insular habitats--be they montane, pastoral or littoral.

The entire range of the Santa Cruz gopher snake is now under the protection of the National Park Service and/or The Nature Conservancy. Therefore this tiny gopher snake can be difficult to acquire.

And how tiny is "tiny"? As mentioned above the adult length seldom exceeds 30" and hatchlings are 6 to 8" in length. For a gopher, that's tiny!

More photos under the jump...

Patti and I sat on the screened deck this evening (06/03/15) and marveled at the agility of the many bats (probably most were Mexican free-tailed bats) and several dozen dragonflies overhead. We were in the midst of a flying ant emergence and the predatory insects and bats were taking full advantage of the seasonal repast. On convoluted flyways some 30 or 40 feet up, both had become active while the sun was still visible on the western horizon and were still wheeling and reeling when it became too dark to follow their aerial antics.

I came inside to make a few notes on the sightings and happened to glance around at the windows. Not only was it a bat and dragonfly night, it was a gecko night as well. There was at least one Mediterranean gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, on every single window and several windows hosted 2 or 3 geckos. Every gecko was actively foraging on the ants and other small insects drawn to the lights.

The temperature was a warm 81F and the humidity 85%, apparently providing ideal conditions for our nocturnal friends. And I noted that the dragonflies, insects I had always thought of as exclusively diurnal, were still active when it had become too dark for me to follow their antics. This had been better than watching the Blue Angels and a whole lot less noisy. Some evenings just can't be improved upon.

More photos under the jump...

It was early morning (about 0715) and the temperature was just about 70 F. A least bittern -- always an avian photographic nemesis for me -- had just flown across the gravel road and landed in a patch of cattails about 30 feet ahead of me. I slowed, not that I was walking all that fast anyway, and decided to sit and wait a while on the wet and grassy bank to see if the bird would emerge in a photographable position. It did. But hoping for something even better I waited longer.

As luck would have it, while waiting I noticed a slight disturbance in a patch of floating vegetation about 15 feet from shore. My interest shifted to the floating grasses. Was something really there or was the disturbance caused by a current? I watched. Yes, there definitely was something there and it was closer to shore now. Ah ha! A snake. A dark snake with vestiges of darker bands and of a fair girth. Oh, of course. A Florida cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorous conanti.

The snake neared the shore, idled quietly in the shallows for a minute or two, then slowly emerged. It angled towards a sunny spot about 6 feet from me. Once there it stopped with its head bathed in the warming rays, and then with tongue flickering coiled ever so slowly. When I shifted positions to better angle the camera the snake made a fleeting defensive gape.

Once it settled, I stood, moved quietly up the hill, and left both bird and snake in peace. This was a fine way to begin the day.

More photos under the jump...

The skies opened and the deluge began. There was no easing into it. Within minutes, the afternoon sun in which anoles and tortoises had been basking had been obliterated by leaden clouds. Thunder rumbled and lighting speared the heavens. Torrential rains were falling - 2 and a half inches in just under one hour.



By the time darkness had enveloped us, our little artificial pond on the hill was freshened, overflowing, and echoing with the rapidly pulsed and oft repeated trills of southern toads, Bufo terrestris.

But it was from across the road in the newly opened Sweetwater Wetlands Park that the true anuran cacophony had begun. Tiny marble-sized narrow-mouthed toads, Gastrophryne carolinensis, were present in some numbers, but their peenting calls were virtually overwhelmed by the vocalizations of the two larger, dominant treefrogs: the green and the barking (Hyla cinerea and H. gratiosa, respectively) that had gathered by the dozens, perhaps in the hundreds in the newly created temporary pools.

With favorable breezes the loud choruses, the "wonks" and "hollow barks", of these 2 beautiful hylids could be heard from our back deck more than a half mile away.

Need I mention that it is for these storms that we wait anxiously each year, for with each year's storm arrival we are enchanted anew by the anuran activity they induce.

"Snake!" Both Jake and I voiced the single word simultaneously.



Ahead of us, nearing the edge of the pavement, was the unmistakable form that we had been hoping to see. There were no other vehicles in sight on the roadway. As we neared, we both said "canebrake." I stopped a couple of dozen feet before reaching the snake and Jake piled out of one door and I from the other. The snake lying quietly stretched out, merely kinked a bit as we neared and never rattled.

The canebrake rattlers, Crotalus horridus atricaudatus, of this region vary noticeably in ground color with most being tan or dead-leaf brown. A few, though, are a beautiful purple or pink and we were elated to see that this 30 incher was one of these latter.

Since there was still no traffic we took a few pictures, gently touched the rattler's tail with a slender stick, and watched for a few moments as the snake slowly crawled from the pavement and disappeared without disturbance into the roadside greenery.

A canebrake had been our goal for the evening but having found this beauty we decided to continue road-hunting for another half hour. In that 30 minute time frame we saw 3 additional snakes: a corn, a juvenile yellow-gray rat snake, and a Peninsula ribbon snake.

All in all it was a great evening, one that we both would remember favorably, and we were home before dark!

I was a few steps ahead of Patti walking that mid-May evening on a trail in the newly opened Sweetwater Wetlands Park. My nose in the air, I was looking for a nearby white-eyed vireo that was caroling loudly and persistently from the low trees.

Suddenly Patti said "You better stop and look at what you just walked by."



I stopped, turned and looked down. About 10 feet behind me, lying unperturbed by my passing and our presence, half its 30" body length on the path, was a beautiful juvenile eastern diamond-back rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus.

Stretched fully out and except for its flickering tongue and lying absolutely motionless, the little snake had just left the woodland and begun crossing the trail. With other folks approaching, we decided it would probably be best to move the little snake out of sight.

Picking up a slender stick I slid it beneath the snake and moved him to the side of the path. Within seconds he had completed the effort and moved quietly and completely from view.

We happily bade it adieu.