Southern Cali Trip - April 2016

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ksmith44
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Joined: June 20th, 2014, 9:51 am

Southern Cali Trip - April 2016

Post by ksmith44 »

I joined a couple of years ago with the best of intentions to get back into herping. I grew up in Florida flipping every rotten log I could dig up, but I am still a complete newbie out here in the desert. I have lived in Utah now for over 10 years and while I always look around when we are hiking and fishing, I really have not dedicated any time to just herping since moving out here. Family, career, ... life just seemed to get in the way. Thanks to all of your posts which provide frequent nudges to get back out there. The final proverbial straw was when my 10 year old son asked for a snake hook for his birthday. We were visiting relatives in southern California and since I was already on vacation, we managed to squeeze a day in between the beach and Magic Mountain.

Based on some great tips from forum members, especially Jimi, we focused on the desert east of San Diego - kinda bouncing around in the area between Anza-Borrego and Joshua Tree.

Conditions were great. Temps ranged from about 85 up by JT to 101 as we worked our way south. There was very little wind which I hear can be a big problem down there this time of year, and a big storm came in the next day after we left which in my experience seems to help (maybe just circumstantial - but I am sticking with it as long as it works for me)



LIZARD LOOP (I don't remember the actual name of the hike)
We went on a hike during the heat of the afternoon which my kids now call Lizard Loop since we probably saw more than 10 different species of lizards in about 2 hours. Here are a few shots of the friends we made on Lizard Loop (unfortunately the pics aren't great as I only had my phone - I was a wuss and did not want to carry my big DSLR in the heat)


Common Side-blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana)
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Mojave Zebra-tailed Lizard (Callisaurus draconoides rhodostictus) - I love watching these run around with their tails curled up. Unfortunately, I could not get a great zoomed in action shot with my phone
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Long-nosed Leopard Lizard (Gambelia wislizenii wislizenii) - In his best Godzilla pose
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Desert Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus magister) - there was a barrier which kept me about 25 feet away from this one, and with only a phone I did not get a great shot (this was at full zoom), so I may have misidentified it. If someone has corrections, let me know. It was probably about 10 inches long.
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Great Basin Whiptail (Aspidoscelis tigris tigris)
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Western Chuckwalla (Sauromalus ater obesus) - The chucks were out in force. I think we probably saw 8-10 in about 15 minutes. The highlight of my trip may have come from a chuck. We were inside the park at this point, but one of the chucks was so close to where we were sitting that my son simply could not resist and conveniently "forgot" about the hands off rules. The chuck had wedged himself into a crack in our rock bench, and my son tried to grab him and got tail-whipped. He was more startled than hurt, but it was a great way to learn a lesson :)
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BLOOMING DESERT
Growing up back east, I often think of the desert as being a bit dull (in color, not adventure). However, things were just starting to bloom and I am always amazed at how colorful the landscape can be.
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ROAD CRUISING
That night we had some success cruising. Unfortunately, 3 out of 4 were DOR (Two specks and one snake that was so mangled I couldn't even identify it). The only AOR we found was this beautiful little gopher snake. I am always amazed at how docile these guys are. I think this one was just happy to have found a better heat source than the road. It was especially fond of my daughter's shoes.

Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis)
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Hopefully it's not another 10 years before my next post :)
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Jeremy Westerman
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Joined: October 12th, 2010, 11:05 am
Location: Utah
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Re: Southern Cali Trip - April 2016

Post by Jeremy Westerman »

cool finds!
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DennyZ
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Joined: June 1st, 2011, 10:33 am
Location: Reno,Nevada
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Re: Southern Cali Trip - April 2016

Post by DennyZ »

Great finds!
blichtenhan
Posts: 1
Joined: April 30th, 2014, 1:37 pm

Re: Southern Cali Trip - April 2016

Post by blichtenhan »

Love the cacti shots.
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