I hate long drives so I decided to make the trip in 2 days, spending an afternoon, night, and morning at the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, which was about 2/3 of the way to my final destination.

The first thing I came to realize there was just how ugly the Collared Lizards are in most parts of New Mexico. This is a freakin’ female and its got more green than any male I’ve ever seen in New Mexico.

“Dame un beso mama”

I loved watching the Prairie Dogs


Dirty little fella.


This poor little guy had a nasty gash over the eye and seemed really listless.

Barking out a warning

This male Collared Lizard would blow away any male from back home, and this is not even close to being exceptional for the Wichita Mountains!

Love the yellow heads and throats on these guys!

There were tons of wildflowers, in this case Indian Blanket. I wish I had more time there so I could work on some serious landscape photos, as well as more wildlife.


Getting nicer.


Wild Onions and Coreopsis.

Now this is a Collared Lizard! (Apparently with an itch).




I like the missing scales on the throat. No doubt lost in a fight with another male.


More Wild onions.

Turkey hen.

Tarantula

Male Bison herding a female

Getting a little personal!

Guess thats what she thinks of him!

Bison Bull

Bison cow. (Ain’t she purdy)!

Wichita Mountains NWR also has Texas longhorn cattle. Not exactly wildlife, but pretty cool for cows!

Mama and calf.


Big nasty lookin’ bull!

Downy Paintbrush

That night I heard anurans calling from one of the lakes and attempted to photograph them. No less than 4 species made a fool of me and I came away wet and cold, but with no pictures. In fact, I never even saw a frog! As I was driving out though I got my consolation prize. A lifer Small-mouth Salamander.

Bison Bull the next morning

Grazing in the mist.

I can’t believe our fore fathers thought it was a good idea to wipe these majestic animals off of the plains and replace them with idiotic cows!

Bison calf

Bison cow



Breakfast

Young Prairie Dog



Yummy grass!

Burrow mending


The little one with the gash over the eye was looking and acting much better this morning!

These guys spend a lot of time eating!

Lark Sparrow

I’m definitely going back and for a longer stay next time.
The that afternoon I arrived at my final destination and after spending a day doing non herper stuff, (I even went to a Casino, won $16). I was ready to hike. I visited the Wildcat Glades Conservation and Audubon Center in Joplin, Missouri the next morning.

Walking the trails there I found this Eastern Cottontail

A very uncooperative Eastern Musk Turtle.

Another Cottontail

Lots of basking Northern Map Turtles

A young racerunner racing!

And still

That night my cousin, who also likes herps, took me road cruising. We found a chorus of American Toads.

A Brown Snake

Juvenile Western Ratsnake

Green Frog
We also cruised a beautiful adult Copperhead, but it got of the road before I was able to get any pictures. (Neither of us had brought a hook along). The next morning my cousin took me out to some private property he has access to. The owner informed us that he had Timber Rattlesnakes on the property and gave us directions to a hillside where he most often sees them.

On the way we found this Western Ratsnake in the road.

We searched the hillside, but found no Timbers. As a consolation however I did get this Dark-sided Salamander, (a lifer).

My hat is off to the people on this forum that can take interesting pictures of salamanders. You guys/girls have a lot more patience than I do!

On another part of the property I found this juvenile Osage Copperhead.



Juvenile Five-lined Skink

This was one of those lucky incidents you don’t plan for. I had collected this Ornate Box Turtle on a road earlier, with plans to photograph it later. I put it down in a likely looking spot and waited behind the camera. Usually with turtles what happens in this situation is you watch them for a long, long time. Then if you’re lucky you get one shot of the turtle with its head and legs out before it turns 180 degrees and walks away.

In this case though I just happened to place the turtle down next to an earthworm.

The turtle was more interested in eating the earthworm than it was in fleeing!

All gone! (The turtle was released where found afterwards).

Three-toed Box Turtle also collected on a road and photographed later.

Snapping Turtle out looking for a place to lay eggs.

Unfortunately it was getting dark when I found her and I had to resort to using flash. I really preferred the available light, like in the previous shot, but the shutter speed was way to slow to stop even the slightest movement.

See what I mean about the whole turning 180 degrees and walking away thing? I never did get the shot I wanted of her. (Pretty nasty looking leach on her hind leg though).

Look girls, I can sing and balance a stick on my head at the same time!

Calling Gray Treefrog

Calling American Toad

Spavinaw Wildlife Management Area.

One of two Ringneck Snakes I flipped there. Neither one seemed very inclined to do the whole tail-coiling display.

Spavinaw again

Prairie Kingsnake I road cruised one night on my way back to the hotel.


Southern Leopard Frog hiding in the undergrowth. (As they so often do).


White-tail doe

Flagging

Grey Treefrog

American Toad

Blanchard’s Cricket Frog. There were also Leopard Frogs calling in this chorus and what I believe to be Great Plains Narrow-mouth Toads, but I was never able to get a visual on them.

Back in New Mexico on June 11th and I went looking for Rock Rattlesnakes with Neil M. The first one we found was a male, soon to shed unfortunately.

Neil turned up an opaque Black-tail. As I was making my way across the hillside to where Neil was I found another Black-tail basking at the edge of a boulder. I left it alone, figuring we would return to it after looking at Neil’s snake, but on the way back I couldn’t find the boulder again!

As we were making our way back down the canyon I got buzzed by this little female. As we were digging her out we realized there were actually 2 within a couple meters of one another. The second one was also a female, larger and opaque. I didn’t take any pictures of her, but she had a lot of pink pigment.

Driving out we saw this earless lizard perched up on a rock

Neil wanted to cruise for Transpecos Ratsnakes that night, so we drove down to the ara where we could do that. We still had daylight to burn, so we did a little hiking where I photographed this Tree Lizard.

We got skunked on subocs, but ended up with something much better. A Texas Lyre Snake!

We also got a Blind Snake, a Hook-nose Snake, Night Snake, Diamond-back, and Prairie Rattlesnake, but I didn’t bother to photograph any of them.

Last night I did a little local road cruising. I missed a Massasauga because I was munching popcorn and didn’t have my camera ready, but I did manage to get a shot of this Banner-tailed Kangaroo Rat being buffeted by the wind.

And this Long-nosed Snake.
Hey thanks for hanging in there!