Two weekends ago, Nicholas and I joined forces with Rich Rang and his younger son Austin (8) on a two-night camping trip to the Western Mojave Desert.
Nicholas and I arrived at the campsite around 9 o'clock Friday night. On the way up, we took a couple of minor detours to get some roadcruising in right after sundown, but had no luck. When we met up with Rich and Austin, we learned that they had found about 5 snakes (including some gophers and glossies) in about 2 hours, though in a different area.
Rich had brought an 8-men tent, so there was no need for Nick and I to put up our own tent. After the boys had a chance to swap some stories, we all hit the sack.
Saturday morning we were up bright and early.
Our campsite
Rich fiddling with a lizard noose
A spiny lizard the boys found in debris around a yucca plant:
Rich's shot:
We set off around 8:30 to check out a place with some AC. Turned out we either couldn't find it or the place had been bulldozed. Luckily, we spotted a different place with plenty of AC elsewhere while driving, which, though it looked promising, yielded little except a few utas and fences.
Around 9:30, while driving on a dirt road, we came across this nice adult scute crossing the road, shown here as it slithered off after what must have been one of the longest scute photo shoots ever :
Rich, Nick and I soon got down to business and started shooting pics from every conceivable angle.
All throughout the process, the snake remained calm and cooperative (well, for a scute anyway), striking some rather nice poses for us.
Here are some of Nick's 100+ shots:
And here's a last shot, this one edited by Nick himself, apparently in an effort to turn the scute into an atrox
Especially for Nick and myself, that scute made our day. Finding and photographing a scute in the daytime had been our main objective for this trip, and now we had - unexpectedly - achieved that objective in the first hour.
Rich, btw, got some killer shots of the scute from super-low angles, I hope we will post some of them for all of us to see.
We then continued on to the place where we had been heading, and hiked the creosote flats for a couple of hours. Nicholas and I were secretly hoping to maybe walk another scute, but it was not to be.
Instead we found three leopard lizards and a rather nice looking desert horned lizard:
Nick's shots
Around lunch time, we checked out a gulch I had spotted on GoogleEarth in nearby (well-known) canyon, thinking that we might find some collared lizards there. We had hardly started out, when Austin spotted a chuckwalla disappearing into a crack. The only, poor, shot I could manage was this one:
For whatever reason, we never found any collared lizards there, nor any additional chucks. But it was a nice (steep) climb in some potentially good habitat. A place to come back to in spring, perhaps.
After some relaxation at camp, we set out for some roadcruising shortly before sundown. Temps were in the lower 80's and, later, upper 70's, and the almost full moon had yet to rise.
Despite the seemingly good conditions, it turned out to be a slow, relatively unproductive 3 1/2 hours. After at least an hour, we finally found our first snake, a neonate cerastes:
The next hour produced only DORs: two more neo sidewinders, one adult sidewinder and a subadult scute. The boys were really bummed, with Austin asking why people were hitting all of these snakes.
In the last half hour or so, we finally came across one more live snake, this one another adult sidewinder. At first, the snake was extremely uncooperative and Nick had a hard time getting some decent shots, with the snake constantly moving in the dark:
But after a few minutes, after the snake had apparently figured out that she wasn't going to be able to outrun us , she struck a defensive pose, which she then held for a few minutes without hardly moving at all:
So, yes, it turned out that EVERY SINGLE SNAKE we found that day, dead or alive, was a crote. Nicholas and I actually didn't mind, since we are, as you know, quite fond of crotes. But at least Rich and Austin had hoped for some non-venomous snakes Austin would be able to pick up and hold.
Sunday was even slower than Saturday. The area around the campground, where we had found spinies and zebra tails last year, was completely dead.
The only consolation were two desert tortoises in a pen at the visitor center, which the boys enjoyed. There, we also found the only zebra tail lizard of the trip, this one a tiny fellow:
On a hunch, we then checked out an area north of the campground that looked like this:
But all we had to show for after about an hour of hiking was a handful of skittish utas.
Back at the campsite, the boys then continued to build what they called "Highland Aquatic Nature Preserve" (or something close to that)
My shot:
Rich's shot:
Having had no luck in the morning, we decided to leave the area for good after lunch and check out of a few more places on the way home. Let it suffice to say that our 100 mile detour didn't produce anything but ONE lizard. But at least it was a collared lizard:
In situ (my shot):
After I had taken a few pictures, Austin proceeded to noose the lizard on the first try. Here's Rich removing the collared from the noose:
Nicholas, who arrived on the scene a couple of minutes later, then took a few more shots, while I was holding the lizard by the tail and at the same time trying to duck out of the picture. In the end, the best Nicholas could manage was this:
The last two places we checked out, the first one a normally excellent zebra tail spot, the other a great spot for collareds (Jim: can you guess what I am talking about? ) produced zilch.
And so we called it a day around 5 pm and each headed home.
All in all, it was a good trip, though. We really enjoyed the company of Rich and Austin, who are every bit as gungho about herping as we are, possibly more so. The boys got along great from the moment they met and spent quite a bit of time playing "chuckwalla family" near the campsite, building their "aquatic preserve," etc., giving Rich and myself time to kick back and relax. We plan to do more trips together in the future.
We hope you enjoyed Nick's pictures and will forgive me for my long-winded prose.
Robert and Nicholas
Western Mojave Trip
Moderator: Scott Waters
Re: Western Mojave Trip
Looks like fun. I love cruising the western Mojave area. What were the evening/night temps. i know it has been getting a little to cold to cruise in spots the last month.
Re: Western Mojave Trip
Awesome photography Nickert. I'm glad that a great time was had by all. This post, in particular, brought back many fond memories from my childhood - of backpacking and camping the desert with my youth science club...many years ago. I now feel motivated to head back down that way. Not that I'm tiring of fence lizards and ensatina -El Garia
Re: Western Mojave Trip
Temps were in the lower 80's and, later, upper 70's, and the almost full moon had yet to rise.
- Carl Brune
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Nice post. Love the lizards and the scenery.
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Been worth the drive just to see a Lep. for me... haven't seen one all year... glad you got your daytime scute... jim
oh yeah...those 2 places rock in the am... pm... not so much.
oh yeah...those 2 places rock in the am... pm... not so much.
- Ross Padilla
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Very nice post, Robert. Your boy takes some nice photos.
Re: Western Mojave Trip
Robert, seeing as how you & Nick are crote lovers, it appears this trip was very productive. I like the Scute pics and the Cerastes in the "elevated headshot". Nick's pics look great! I'd say you managed the better of the Collared Lizard shots I hope to take my daughter on a trip like that on the next couple of years when she can keep up!
Nice post.
-Evan
Nice post.
-Evan
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Robert,
you mentioned that at the 1st place you stopped, you saw uta's and 'fences'... did you mean desert spinys or actual swifts? just wondering... jim
you mentioned that at the 1st place you stopped, you saw uta's and 'fences'... did you mean desert spinys or actual swifts? just wondering... jim
Re: Western Mojave Trip
Thanks for all of your comments. Glad you liked the pictures.
Jim: Yeah, you're right of course, they were desert spinys, not fences. I don't know what I was thinking. Good to know for the future that your two spots are more productive am than pm (though that's pretty much the case for most spot in fall, I guess). Temps were actually very reasonable for mid-late afternoon in the high desert, about 84-86 degrees.
Robert
Jim: Yeah, you're right of course, they were desert spinys, not fences. I don't know what I was thinking. Good to know for the future that your two spots are more productive am than pm (though that's pretty much the case for most spot in fall, I guess). Temps were actually very reasonable for mid-late afternoon in the high desert, about 84-86 degrees.
Robert
- todd battey
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Nice job, guys. You found a nice variety for the Mojave this time of year and the scute you were hoping to find.
Todd
Todd
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Re: Western Mojave Trip
Good trip guys, and more great pix again..