Short Trips

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Noah M
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Joined: November 3rd, 2012, 7:00 pm
Location: Gainesville, FL
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Short Trips

Post by Noah M »

March and April are great months. Spring comes around, the cold weather goes away, and snakes start to move. But it also is the end of the semester, so the work load goes up. I have been able to get a few full days of herping in, but many of those have been busts. I've been looking high and low for a pine snake with no luck. Most of my trips have been short trips, many at night, which really don't permit me to get to good pine snake habitat at the right time of day. But, that isn't to say I haven't seen some neat stuff. I know I had been puting together my Frogs on my Trunk series, but I don't think I've shared most of these before.

I hope you enjoy.

One day while scouting an area for pine snakes I found this coral snake.
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One evening the wife and I went to a local lake, and right about when the mosquitos came out in force, a few green tree frogs crawled out of the posts on the dock.
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I spent one whole day cruising some upland habitat last month for a pine. Saw 11 black racers, a coachwhip, and this ribbon snake during the day.
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I moved to a more coastal area for the evening and found a Blue-striped Ribbon Snake after dark.
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I went out one night to look for a Blue-striped Garter and found this teeny little grass frog on the road. I moved it to this weed for a better picture.
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I flipped my garden boards a few weeks back and found this young eastern glass lizard.
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After working my dipnet one Friday afternoon and I did some evening cruising and turned up this pygmy rattler.
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This has seriously been the year of the ribbon snake. I think I've found 6 AOR in the past few weeks, 3 in one night.
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Back in the pine uplands I found Florida Scrubs and a few other lizard species.
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My first Peninsula Cooter for the year. I don't do any kayaking like Matt, so I'm always exctid to find turtles.
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Earlier this year I found a nice DOR Florida Green Watersnake. I've been heading back to that area when I have a few hours to look in hopes of finding a live one. No such luck yet, but I did find this of all things. It was a warm dry night. I had stopped cruising because I heard some Barking Tree Frogs. I got out of the car and there in front of me, purely by accident, was this Gopher Frog!

Lithobates capito
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mtratcliffe
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Joined: January 19th, 2014, 4:34 pm
Location: Mt Laurel, NJ

Re: Short Trips

Post by mtratcliffe »

I like the Green Tree Frogs coming out of the post at night - makes you wonder where frogs might be hiding during the day that we aren't aware of. There's a park near me that has a sign with a swinging door on it. More often than not, there's at least one Squirrel Treefrog hiding in the areas behind the door. Also, how did you see that Little Grass Frog on the road?

Those are some good looking snakes, too!
Lloyd Heilbrunn
Posts: 285
Joined: June 9th, 2010, 8:15 pm
Location: Palm Beach Gardens, Fl

Re: Short Trips

Post by Lloyd Heilbrunn »

Every year is year of the ribbon snake!
simus343
Posts: 566
Joined: March 30th, 2014, 1:16 pm
Location: Okaloosa ca, Fla.

Re: Short Trips

Post by simus343 »

Lloyd Heilbrunn wrote:Every year is year of the ribbon snake!

+1 to that haha.

Also I would die of a heart attack, figuratively of course, if I could find a Coral Snake. I'd trade multiple of my pine finds to get just one Coral Snake of any size :cry:. I've only seen one. I received an egg from a fried of my grandparents. No one knew what it was, not even me. He had it on beach sand (lots of salt) and it dried out a day later. I cut it open to find a little coral snake. I can't ever seem to find living snakes with red on them :?.
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Noah M
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Location: Gainesville, FL
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Re: Short Trips

Post by Noah M »

Lloyd Heilbrunn wrote:Every year is year of the ribbon snake!
What I meant by this is that I've found more AORs than usual. Every year I do find plenty of ribbons, but most of them are mangled up strips of snake bacon. This year I've found several that were alive and healthy.

Matt - I was out cruising in some gentle rain on a paved road. One that looks like it was paved within the past few years because it was nice and smooth. There were few, if any pebbles and rocks on it. So when I saw a tiny little light colored thing, I stopped to look and there was this 0.5" grass frog. I couldn't have told you it was a frog from inside the car, but it seemed out of place. You can actually road cruise spiders too. Look for their eye shine from your headlights. I will admit though, most of the road cruised spiders were bigger than the frog!

Simus - I wish I could give you help on corals. I have never targeted them. I usually see at least one DOR a year, just out and about. I think all of them have been in more upland habitat, but I don't think of them as being an upland species.
simus343
Posts: 566
Joined: March 30th, 2014, 1:16 pm
Location: Okaloosa ca, Fla.

Re: Short Trips

Post by simus343 »

I think the reason I have never even seen DORs is because when I'm not at college, I'm almost always at work. Corals seem to be most commonly seen (alive) in lowland and upland flatwoods, right after rains. Being a normally secretive and fossorial snake, from what I understand, as they hunt for prey with similar description, they likely move around as a result of their flatwood habitat being temporarily inundated in water right after a "solid" rain.

Everywhere I go is usually mucky swamp or upland sand hill, never really any flatwoods. We have them around for sure, I just never get an opportunity to go check them out.
Lloyd Heilbrunn
Posts: 285
Joined: June 9th, 2010, 8:15 pm
Location: Palm Beach Gardens, Fl

Re: Short Trips

Post by Lloyd Heilbrunn »

I think ribbons are the only snake I have ever stopped getting out of the car to get them off the road, on those occasional nights where they are that frequent....I was just wasting too much cruising time doing so.
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