Here’s from a trip way back in May, where Kris and I struck out on snakes, but not for lack of effort. We hiked so hard I seriously had trouble walking the next day, and it takes quite a bit to do that to me.

We got up before the sun and headed South to take the long way in hopes of seeing some snakes warming themselves in the early sunlight. No such luck. That set the tone for what was a pretty herp-free trip. Here’s some pictures from the first day.

Bullfrog

Whiptail

Fur Bug

We camped at the base of the mountain and got up before sunup once again to see what we could find. We ended up hiking to the top of the mountain before noon, climbing a full mile up over 5.2 miles of trail. What to do when you get up there? Hurry your ass back down before dark!

First, however, you have to wake up and find the will to put on your boots.

The filthy underbelly of herping

Lots of nice scenery, which you can’t look at much without ending up part of it.

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

This is why you don’t want to get struck by lightning. Someone should have told this tree.

Lightning-gutted tree

No snakes, but we saw lots of lizards who didn’t seem to mind people very much.

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

When snakes are hiding, expect to see plenty of tree pictures.

 Share

Here’s a neonate we found out and about in South Eastern Arizona. Pissy little guy with a bright red nose. Maybe that’s why he was so upset.

c-bilineatus-080908

 Share

… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Here are some more pictures from the drive back to Arizona.

Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Near Silver City, New Mexico

HDR Photo in New Mexico

That night we stayed just inside New Mexico, and spent a few hours along the border.

sunset

… when herps are few, you’ll get scenery pictures.

In the night, we found a couple toads … a Great Plains Toad (Anaxyrus cognatus) and a male Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii):

Great Plains Toad

Couch\'s Spadefoot (male)

The amount of bugs flying all around us was just unreasonable at this point. There are usually a lot of creepy things flying around my head out there, attracted to the head lamp, but this night was just ridiculous. I was pulling crawling things out of my hair a full hour after getting back in the truck for the last time.

Anyway, that being said, here’s a little longnose snake we found who was as annoyed to be found as we were by the bugs we had to endure to get a picture. He wasn’t cooperative, and neither were we. This is the best we could do:

Long Nosed Snake

In the morning, I got up early to do a little hiking and see if anything was awake. I found a snake pretty quickly. It was a young Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis) of the usual high-pink color I usually find on this side of state.

He wasn’t happy about being woken up.

Sonoran Gophersnake

I spent some time hiking and didn’t find anything else, but it was hard to be disappointed.

Chiricuahua Mountains

Chiricuahua Mountains

I’ll end this series the same way our trip ended. While driving back to the hotel to get Kelly up and go home, I found the writhing body of a Mojave Rattlesnake. Both head and tail had been removed while the animal was still alive. Blood was splattered all around. This happened within minutes of my arrival.

Everything\'s Dumber in Texas

This is the kind of macho bullshit perpetuated by the idiots of Sweetwater Texas in their yearly redneck festival, where hundreds of dusty people too arrogant to realize they’re internationally recognized as personified ignorance gather to see who has the biggest hat. Of course this was not in Texas, but Rodeo, New Mexico.

It’s very hard to spend so much time with these animals and not become absolutely furious when finding something like this. This is, to me, similar to how most would feel if they found a dog in the street missing its head, somehow still moving. This was in my thoughts for days. I’m not kidding when I say I hope that the severed head got off one last bite. Sad to say these were my thoughts … but I guess I don’t prefer to be out in the desert whenever I can because I like people.

… and if any residents of Sweetwater end up on this site due to some Googling … please, please, please … buy your kids a book or two, and make Wednesday “No Beating!” day.

 Share

… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

We went for a short hike along the Delaware River in the afternoon. Temperatures were a little too hot to see much other than some whiptails. I did get some pictures of a softshell turtle. It was my first, so I was quite satisfied with this being the only notable animal of the trip.

First, a picture of what is probably a dinner-plate sized painted turtle making its way across the river.

Painted Turtle

Here’s a large spider making friends with a damselfly.

Best Pals

Another spider hanging out in the grass … this one a little more pointy than the other.

Potential Afternoon-Ruinner

The soft shelled turtle:

Spiny Softshelled Turtle

Here’s an HDR picture of evening clouds moving in from the South.

Standing in a big shadow

After watching the bat flight from the caverns, we went out again. Pretty quickly, we found the second of the really interesting diamondbacks on the trip. A big chocolate-brown Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox).

Crotalus atrox

A young male tarantula out and about:

Tarantula

… and last for the night, a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus).

 Share

… continued from part 1, 2 and 3.

In the morning we went to see the caves. I’ll keep this post separate, since it’s a lot of cave pictures, and this site isn’t called caveexplorer.com.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

If you want to see more, I uploaded the full set to my Flickr account.

That’s it for this one! I have a few more posts to go.

 Share

… continued from part 1 and part 2.

We eventually arrived at my parent’s house in Carlsbad mid-morning. After relaxing a bit, we went out to an area near town to see what there is to see. I brought my parents with me as well.

Here’s my mom holding a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus formerly Bufu punctatus), followed by another picture of him.

Mom and Red-Spotted Toad

Anaxyrus punctatus

Then we found my favorite of the desert toads, a female Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii) out and about. They look so weird, with the huge eyes and bony spurs of a true desert specialist. I was glad to find one and show my parents some of the cooler stuff that lives out here.

Scaphiopus couchii

Then we found the first vinegaroon I’ve ever seen in the wild. We ended up seeing a few others, but didn’t stop. The body was a few inches long … bigger than I thought they’d be. Completely harmless, other than his looks and smells.

vinegaroon

If you try and touch them, they get pissed quickly.

vinegaroon

 Share

… continued from part 1.

We crossed into New Mexico about a half hour after dark and headed East. We found another young Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) pretty quickly. It had a pretty minimal pattern on it, and had more pink coloration than I’m used to seeing in the Phoenix area.

Crotalus atrox

Then we found another Desert Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula splendida), this one a good deal larger than the last one. The first picture is Kelly holding him up.

Kelly with a Kingsnake

Desert Kingsnake

Desert Kingsnake

Next we found a pinkish-looking Western Diamondback Rattlesnake with a very washed out, light pattern.

Diamondback

The last snake of the evening was another nice, clean Diamondback.

Crotalus atrox

… and that’s that for this one! I’ve got a few more posts yet to make of this trip.

 Share

We left at about 2 in the afternoon to take the long route to the border, and then use some backroads to get to El Paso for the night.

The area along the Arizona/New Mexico border was just finished being pounded by monsoonal rain. The air was in the upper 70’s, which is a little on the cool side for late July. Everything was washed in glowing orange as the sun set, so we stopped to get some dramatic pictures of the rocks and road before the rain started in again.

Sun-lit rocks in Arizona

Sun-lit rocks in Arizona

Just Northeast of Douglas, Arizona

Just Northeast of Douglas, Arizona

It didn’t take long to find a Western Diamondback (Crotalus atrox) with the decently clean pattern we usually find in that area.

Crotalus atrox from Eastern Arizona

Crotalus atrox from Eastern Arizona

Then we found a nice yellow Desert Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula splendida). I didn’t really get a good picture of him though because I didn’t see the pile of fire ants that I was standing on. One made it up my pant leg and stung me a good dozen or so times on the knee before I was able to kill it. Fire ants suck. When I’m done posting this I’m going to see if Amazon has any specials on magnifying glasses. Anyway, I got a decent picture of the snake before being driven back to the truck.

Desert Kingsnake

Desert Kingsnake

We were expecting the giant storm to our East to end our herping early, but it fell apart after it got dark, leaving smooth skies and lightning here and there in the distance.

With my entire leg throbbing from fire ant venom, we found a neonate Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) out trying not to be eaten in his first few days of life.

Crotalus scutulatus

Crotalus scutulatus

Here’s a second picture zoomed out a little so you can see how tiny this little guy was. Coiled, he was about the diameter of a beer can.

Crotalus scutulatus

Crotalus scutulatus

That’s it for now; Chinese food should be here soon. I’ll post the rest from the trip in coming days, as I am able to work through the thousand or so photos I took in the last week.

 Share