Washington herping?

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Porter
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Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

Hey peeps... I'll be flying to Washington tomornigh night on business and will be staying there for a week. I plan on doing a little hurting within the radius of my hotel room. Is there a good online Field Guide similar to Calherps for Washington...? I just want to get familiar with species . I figure they're still got to be salamander and frog possibility boas, bull snakes(?) and little moist creatures . Anyone wants to shoot me a species list, that would be cool too. No specific locales please. Thanks!
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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Hey... disregard the above. I actually just remembered that Calherps has a Washington section. I think Gary told me he lived near Puget Sound or had a friend there or something when we were cruisin together and talked music. Then I remembered seeing a picture he took of a Puget Sound garter. That's going to work for me. I just wanted to see what kind of frog possibilities were up that way and what not... looks like there's a ton of different salamanders up there.
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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Will upload any finds I find the time to find...
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technoendo
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by technoendo »

I actually just remembered that Calherps has a Washington section.
Oh good you found it. Pretty awesome site for folks on the west coast. http://www.californiaherps.com/northwest2.html

Burke Museum also has a decent herp directory here: http://www.burkemuseum.org/blog/curated ... washington

WDFW also has a thing. https://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/herp_a ... smain.html

If you didn't need an online resource I'd suggest the field guide "Reptiles of the Northwest" by Alan St.John: https://www.amazon.com/Reptiles-Northwe ... 551053438/

If you are near the Seattle/Redmond area, Monday forecast looks to be 53F/sunny, and I could take you to one or two public sites where there is a chance of seeing puget sound garters. I was there on the 21st and saw 8 garters, half were basking in the sun, and 1 was a bright blue though I didn't get good photos at the time -- often I find other garters that are low expression, possibly intergrades (or just variable?). https://www.instagram.com/p/BgmVICShbwY/
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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Thanks for the info :thumb:

I checked out a pond near my hotel room last night when I got in. Screaming with Northern Pacific treefrog and one other notably different croak. More of a broken chatter. I still haven't had time to listen to croak IDs from calherps...may just be a chorus frog. I did get a visual on one tho. So got an easy lifer. Maybe two later today... I'm also gonna hit up a few creeks after work today. See if there's anything to flip around them.

That sounds cool man. I was planning on heading up that way. There's a pond in Seattle I found for salamanders. I have Sunday and Monday off from work. I originally was just gonna do a solo mission but it would be cool to meet a fellow herper in the area. I remember seeing you pop up every now and then back when we had the chapters. I was even thinking of contacting Gary. I haven't seen him in quite awhile.

I'll pm you my number :beer:
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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I got off work and returned to the pond I scoped out last night... first snakes of the trip :thumb: They're blue and black. Does that mean no doubt they're pugent sound garters?

I got some video and photos of an awesome breeding session with a large Blue female and two males. I'll upload it later when I get home or it sometime during the trip if I have time...
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technoendo
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Re: Washington herping?

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Well done! The first (blurry) photo has some whitish-blue stripes might be one of the lower expression/integrade/variable with less blue pickerengii maybe. Its a kind of whitish-blue that can be harder to see when the animal is in shade (full sunlight is best) and also can be difficult to capture if your camera is using auto-whitebalance.

I haven't yet learned any helpful techniques (counting upper labial scales/etc) for telling pickerengii apart from common sirtalis and admit such identifications based solely on the colors and style of striping is probably a faulty technique with such variable snakes. I have also been told by one evolutionary biologist who has been collecting samples and working on a paper to basically flatten all subspecies of Thamnophis sirtalis into one species. He thinks there is no concinnus, pickerengii, fitchi -- its all just one species that has some morphological differences created by geographical isolation and not distinct subspecies. Some snake species have already undergone similar changes like the north american rat snake in the link below. Until his paper is reviewed, published, and accepted though I'll stick with pickerengii/concinnus/fitchi/etc.

http://www.elaphe.it/articoli/Mitochond ... oncept.pdf

FYI, I am not a biologist or involved in any serious herpetological science and am not asserting the above is true. I see it as more of a fun topic of discussion. I am aware that some scientists do think mitochondrial dna studies are valid and others that claim its flawed -- I have no dog in this race. I mostly mention it as I'm amused that if this evolutionary biologist is right -- then I can cease feeling inferior when it comes to telling common sirtalis apart from pickerengii! I do like the shorthand of the old subspecies names as its much easier to say "fitchi" than to describe "sirtalis with red spots, yellow stripes, rosy red blushing on its cheeks, and found in this general geographic area." :)
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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Cool stuff :thumb: hey I got no complaints about that... I'm actually someone who suggested that stripe phase king snakes are in a graded with garter snakes centuries ago and the trait just happened to be emerge :lol: I'm no biologist so that definitely holds no water but it seems logical to me. Just based on the fact that there is no garter snakes that do not have stripes. So I figured some kind of DNA is mixed in with those king snakes and stripe face go for snakes. It just seems logical to me. I've been saying since 2010 my color to find on her lips is blue. So, I'm stuck just to see a blue garter snake. Like I always say... Porter's digging those Blues ( slight music reference).

I'll probably return to that garter snakes spot a few more times before I leave and try to photograph the different variations there. Hopefully I'll see that one with the oranges stripe I was telling you about in the pm

I'm losing daylight pretty quick out here, but I did decide to check out one of those Creeks I mentioned above that I thought would be good. Just found my first salamanders :thumb: I think they're Redbacks. Saw 7 or 8 of them now.

Thanks for the info Ian! Talk soon
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

.
.
Update: Things are getting intetesting...

ImageIMG_1014 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr



...keep your antennas tunned in
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technoendo
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Re: Washington herping?

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Porter hauled up to King County and we visited 3 sites with different kinds of habitat. The sky was overcast so the garters weren't out in big numbers, we did see 4 sirtalis garters (no deep blue pickerengii), and 1 ordinoides. Later we flipped a young rough skinned newt but the thing that surprised me the most was seeing northwestern alligator lizards in 39F temps with small patches of snow on the ground and heavy snow in the surrounding mountains. These guys sometimes surprise me at where they turn up. I had just told Porter there was a low chance of success in finding these lizards right now in the places we were herping... lo and behold, that's no salamander I think its a lizard!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhGkLk8nCqG/

Porter was a pleasant and easy going fellow. It was good times. Thanks for hauling up to my neck of the woods sir and best of luck finding herps up here on the remainder of your visit!

EDIT: Porter, after you visited the house my little pet okeetee cornsnake crawled right back into his fresh shed backwards. What a goof!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhHtflhn5Zp/
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

Cool man :thumb: Ian forgot to mention he knows the bomb spot for Mexican food. :beer:
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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On the run. More to come...
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

Heres a few unedited photos I got so far...

The first Puget Sound garter I found when I first got in..

Image20180403_235041 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr


Puget Sound I found with Gary...

Image20180403_234945 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr


Redback with Gary that we thought could have been Larch because of the brown color ization and yellow under the throat... Maybe intergrade?

Image20180403_234856 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr



Redback from the same location...

Image20180403_234810 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr



Insitu of one of the snakes from Ian's video.

Image20180403_234702 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr



Rough-skinned newt with Ian...

Image20180403_234644 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr


Northwestern alligator lizard With Ian..

Image20180403_234539 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr


Awesome invasive black slug at the same habitat as a lizards not. It was big like a banana slug

Image20180403_234147 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr


Gator habitat shot...

Image20180403_234018 by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr



Also found some plywood and flipped somewhere between 12 and 18 of a new salamander species that I hadn't seen yet. Another piece of plywood had two and another piece of plywood have 5 beneath it. :thumb: I'm going to try to find one more salamander species before leaving. And I'm still going for Northwestern awesome variation snakes lol
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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...wait for it
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

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technoendo
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by technoendo »

Well done Porter!

I like those Redbacks and you had no problems finding blue garter snakes quickly -- you had better luck with blue garters than I did when we joined up! That is a decent haul of native herps in western Washington.
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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

Post by Porter »

Thanks man. Yeah I'm pretty stoked! I found a decent amount of Washington lifers and did pretty good for my first time here. I found a good road near the hotel for rain cruising... saw a Pacific tree frogs, red-legged frogs, Long Toed salamander, and rough skin newt. Also flipped a couple of little snakes at a different spot I found where flipped about 20 Long Toed salamanders.They look to be one Northwestern garters and one hybrigrade. The hybrigrade is super pretty. Blue with an orange dorsal stripe. Here's my Washington list...

Puget Sound garter
Northwestern garter
Mixed garter
Redback salamander
Western Long Toed Salamander
Rough-skinned newt
Northwestern Salamander
Pacific tree frog
Red-legged frog
Northwestern alligator lizard

I'll get a post together eventually with all the photos. I got some pretty good ones. Nice trip! Thanks for driving me around so I could point out places to look for salamanders :beer: otherwise we wouldn't had flipped those gators. Seriously my favorite alligator lizard to date. The pattern on those guys are sweet. Much appreciated. Washington is awesome :thumb:



Nature's barbwire... :roll: 8-)



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Porter
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Re: Washington herping?

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Alright, I finally got around to uploading the Washington footage. Boy does it suck :lol: I haven't tried to video in years and these new cameras feel as light as air in your hand. Hard to focus without shake and hard to see what I'm zooming in on. Best to watch these from the youtube site on full screen mode...

The breeding footage is brief. They basically kept repeating the activity in the vid. Basking with males nudging and rubbing the female, twist tailing, then female rushing off to get them off and resting in a new basking spot. I knew the footage was turning out bad, so I put down the cam corder and took DSLR pics instead which turned out much better. Difficult to see, but there are 3 average sized males of different color and pattern (one yellowish with green labials, one with orange spotted dorsal, and one kind of yellow-brownish) and a huge full blue true puget sound gemale. A perfect display of hybrid/ intergration in thr act of happening. I did get several clear views of the female and according to dorsal stripe roughness, belly coloration, and over all color, she was indeed full pickeringii. Weather or not the breeding attempts were successful, those males sure were trying...

Also got some flip footage of a bird laughting at my flashlight between the cheek and shoulder skills :lol: :crazyeyes: :idea: 8-) scope it :thumb:





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