Field Herp Forum

Very interesting project! I have a couple records I could contribute if you still need any from New York. Both locations have robust populations of P. glutinosis.

-Alex

Here's an eastern ribbon from NY that was sitting motionless in the weeds staring at several small frogs that were sitting nearby. https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7450/26857925233_9e753469f5_b.jpg Eastern Ribbon Snake playin' peek-a-boo by Alex Roukis , on Flickr This eastern rat from PA was peeking o...

Thanks Dave! The widow pictured is from Ridge, but I have seen them in Manorville, Yaphank, Calverton, and Massapequa. They can be really abundant in certain areas. In Manorville I found hundreds of spiderlings and adults at one time!

-Alex

Thanks guys! The NY species that aren't on here are stuff like blue-spotted salamander, wood turtle, northern slimy salamander, and some non-natives like yellow-bellied slider, northern red-bellied turtle, and Chinese softshell. For the wood turtle and yellow-bellied slider, I only found DOR this ye...

This was a concern for me for a while too, and the method I like best now is to use a flashlight instead of a regular flash. I lay the flashlight on the ground a few feet back so it isn't directly in the animals eyes and take the pictures on manual setting so the flash doesn't fire. I find that not ...

This was an awesome year for getting out in the field, meeting new herper friends, and finding lifers. NY is not usually thought of as a great state for herping, but there are plenty of scaly critters to keep a guy like me occupied. The pictures shown below are in no way a representation of all the ...

Thank you very much! I do still have some trouble with composition and depth of field. This summer i am planning on really learning more about both of those factors so i can improve my photos. And yes, the grass definitely was not an ideal substrate for the slider picture. Although i do feel it "fit...

I use a Maglite 168 lumens. I didnt buy it specifically for photography, but for general night time herping instead. It works really well for finding frogs and other herps at night and so far has been really sturdy! The best results i've had so far, as far as settings go, is with ISO 800, 1/500 shut...

Thank you both! I like the idea of that too, taking a variety of different types of photographs. Night photography is a fun challenge too! Of couse, as you said, natural light can be a bit of an issue for that lol, it is fun to experiment with different techniques. This year I have been experimentin...

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain more, i agree with all you said! The DOF issue has been something i have had very conflicted opinions on. On one hand, in the hognose photo i like the shallow DOF because it draws the eye to the important part of the snake, the spread hood. On the o...

Thank you very much! I dont find your advice to be negative at all, we all need to hear others' advice to get better so it's great when people can point out the possible negatives so that they can be changed in the future. Personaly, i like a less tight crop on a photo, but then again my taste is a ...

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Its been warm and dry here too. The peepers have been going nuts, but other than that, i havent seen much myself or heard many reports from other people in the area. I did get to see plenty of redbacks, newts, one yearling laterale and some four-toed salamanders, but no spotteds or even wood frogs y...

Sorry to hear about the water snake, Andrea. The other night i saw a bunch of dead frogs frozen in a small pond, including one enormous male bullfrog. It's especially sad to see big adult animals dead that have survived for so long! On the other hand, my luck hasnt been all bad lately! After i poste...

The weather here on Long Island has been pretty inconsistent, so i'm going to play it safe and guess the big emergence will be around March 20th. Obviously its impossible to predict this early though. The rain and warm temps we had today and yesterday night were really good for melting almost all th...

Fantastic post, Justin! It made me remember just how much i'm dying to visit the NJ pines next year! Everything about this post was amazing, especially the milk snake diversity you saw. I'm also jealous of your worm snakes, since i have such a hard time finding those lol.

-Alex

Thanks Andrea and Nick! For as long as i've been following FHF (long before i finally became a member), the EOY posts were something i always looked foward to! It was great to see everybody's photos on regular posts and even on the Facebook group, but there's something special about seeing them all ...

Thanks Porter! The screech owls are pretty common here, and the red and grey morphs seem to occur with about the same frequency, as far as i can tell. Eastern newts are extremely common here! I've always felt that if the efts were rare they would be at the top of every herper's list! Since they are ...

Thanks Kyle! I'm still somewhat new to bird photography, but I'll get a lot more practice this winter to pass the time when the herps aren't out! I'm glad you enjoyed them! In certain parts of NY they are fairly common, but they are absent from my part of the state. The spot I herped in to see them ...

Thanks Dave! The milks we get up here are gorgeous, especially as juveniles! Italian Wall Lizards are very common here, especially in the suburbs of Long Island. They are also found in some parts of New York City too, which is pretty amazing! Very adaptive little critters! That's very interesting th...

Thanks so much MC! That is one of the nicest comments anyone has ever left me! I'm so glad my passion seems to be translating through my pictures, that's the whole goal!

-Alex

Thanks reptologist!

Thanks Justin! For whatever reason i have trouble with Desmognathus. I guess its because i dont have much experience with them compared with others, since we dont have them on Long Island. The primary ID characteristics are a more rounded tail (or is that fuscus, or maybe i'm just making that up ent...

Now that the herping season is coming to a close in New York, I thought i'd put together an end of year post. 2015 was a great year for me with several amazing lifers! Most of the photos here are from Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and the Catskills. Unfortunately some species are missing because t...

Now that the herping season is coming to a close in New York, I thought i'd put together an end of year post. 2015 was a great year for me with several amazing lifers! Most of the photos here are from Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and the Catskills. Unfortunately some species are missing because t...

What a fantastic post! It's great to see that there are herps in Manhattan! I've seen garter snakes, fowler's toads, and a box turtle in Kings County, but had no idea there was anything left on Manhattan Island itself! I'm from Long Island and find a lot of great herps (including those Two-Lined Sal...

Happy belated birthday, Thany!! Those are all some awesome finds, especially on your birthday! Mine is in January, so the only herps i get to find are the ones in my room lol. The shot of Dawg is awesome!!!

I've never seen it in skinks, but have observed it in other species that are not known for that behavior. I had an eastern ribbon snake play dead a few weeks ago, i was handling it very gently (as i do with all herps) and it just opened its mouth and "died." It did not appear to be breathing and it ...

I visited a pond in Greene County, NY and quickly noticed that many of the newts there had some abnormalities. Many of them were lumpy, asymmetrical, and had weird swelling. This particular pond has a very high newt population. The pond is fed by a creek that dries up in the summer, so it becomes sl...

Thank you so much for posting! Educating the public is such an important part of herping, and you're doing a fantastic job at it! I love how you utilize the live snakes, both the venomous and non-venomous, to help you. From the looks of your photos, those people seem to be very willing to listen and...

Definitely could be a timber! I've seen timber rattler sheds that look exactly life that before. I don't think it's Nerodia because the scales look very large and spread apart. Nerodia tend to have smaller scales that are almost overlapping, while timbers tend to have larger scales. I'm no expert on...

I live on Long Island, so it's quite a bit different than NYC, but there are some excellent herping oppurtunities in the state! I go to Harriman State Park a lot for herping and it's GREAT there for lots of different species, and I'm almost positive you can take a bus there from NYC. I have seen ple...

Thanks for the quick reply, y'all! I'm so relieved to hear that this is normal and a sign that he's on his way to healing completely. I had a feeling that's what it was, but of course there was still a little piece of me that was worried about him! Thanks again!!!

-Alex

Hi all! Recently i got a new adult L. g. splendida as a rescue, and he has shed twice in the last month. He came from a questionable background (the people didnt even know that he was a desert kingsnake), and he had a nasty scab that completely covered his rostral and internasal scales. Since having...

Thanks for the information, Andrea and Jimi! If i invest in Permethrin, i think i'm just going to treat my boots and socks. I always wear very light-colored jeans in the field which makes it much easier to spot ticks, and since most ticks get picked up from the ground i think treating my boots and s...

Ticks are pretty much my worst nightmare when i'm herping too! Lyme disease is way too prevalent in the Northeast, so I've been wondering about using Permethrin. It seems like it works great, but i have really been wondering if it would be harmful to the herps i find. I know it's only supposed to be...

I just found my first in NY today! It was a beautiful 4.5 footer that was basking on a boulder. I'll pm you some info soon!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125775141 ... ateposted/

This past weekend i found a quite a few redbacks in a creek, alongside northern two-lined and dusky salamanders. I even found a bunch of spotted salamanders in the creek as well, which to me is just as unusual as finding rebacks there. It was unseasonably hot and dry the past few days, so my theory ...

OMG that's awesomeeee!!! It looks a lot like what they call "T-positive." The T stands for Tyrosinase, which in this case would be in a greater quanitity in its pigment than a normal snake, giving it this light color on its saddles. Maybe it isn't T-positive, but whatever it is it is SOOO COOL!! Awe...

Thanks guys! MCHerper -yeah i'm really lucky that they were still there when i finally got to my favorite vernal pool! There were hundreds! Best of luck to herping with you too! cbernz -thanks! Lol when my birder friend spotted it in the field, she said the same thing about it being ridiculously yel...

It took quite a while for Spring to arrive here, but it's finally here! It seemed like winter would never end, but all of a sudden the weather took a very sudden (and welcome!) turn for the better. Here's some of the critters I've had the pleasure to find in the last 2 weeks! Spring Peepers https://...

Thanks MCHerper! I went out on Monday and the wood frogs were still in full-on breeding mode. I'm so bad with timing my early spring amphibian outings, so I'm glad I got lucky this time! https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8751/16875443529_b275dee13d.jpg Wood Frog (L. sylvaticus) by Alex Roukis , on Flic...

April 6, 2015
Suffolk County, NY
50 degrees, sunny, windy

TMTC wood frogs in vernals
TMTC spring peepers
1 redback salamander (leadback)

Haha I know, I oughta get my head back in the game! It's weird, but I know almost nothing about herps from that part of the world. I also can not wait to hear more about them! Definitely one of the most unusual and interesting species I've ever seen! The caudal lure looks incredibly similar to a rea...

That's simply incredible! Nature never ceases to amaze me.

With that tail and amazing caudal luring skills, i can't believe this species isn't more well-known. I've never even heard of this species before, but it's a new favorite for sure!

April 4, 2015
Nassau County, NY

1 snapping turtle
1 eastern garter snake
Lots and lots of spring peepers calling!

Interesting topic for a poll! Personally, i am fine with handling herps in most cases. While it can and does cause some stress, this stress level does not seem severe at all and many herps will resume normal behavior only minutes after being released. A lot of birders do seem to consider this harras...

I saw a video of a very large wood frog chorus from Long Island taken on Sunday. Looks like things are finally getting underway! Does anybody know for how long wood frogs will be in full on breeding mode? I know they are pretty explosive and quick breeders, but if their initial "explosion" of breedi...

Well, it's snowing here on Long Island again. We are supposed to get up to 4 inches where i am and possibly up to 7 inches a half hour east in my spotted salamander area. Im actually glad they havent started breeding yet because the vernal pools will almost certainly freeze a good amount in the next...

Good to know! Thanks so much for that information!