And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

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Porter
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And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

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And then, I found myself in Ohio...

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Porter
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

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Gary N
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Gary N »

Not bad for a quick trip. Are there no names given for most of the herps because this a quiz for those of us who don't know Ohio herps?

OK, I'll take a guess -

Leadback redback
Northern dusky
Painted turtle
Dekay's
Green frog juvenile
Eastern gartersnakes
(Gray treefrogs - nice!)
Northern leopard frog
Bullfrog
American toads
Dekay's
Yoda turtle

How'd I do?
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Porter
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

Thanks man :) for a little background info. I was on a top secret mission that’s romantic as it gets and classified on high security level. However, only within the sincerest human moral integrity. If you ask people in Ohio, where are the snakes in Ohio...they say, “there are no snakes in Ohio” :lol: one person said gotta go down south. None here...(central Ohio) So naturally I expressed my frustration to an Old Jedi master to see what his thoughts were. I wasn’t too concerned cause herping was just a plan-B to kill some time..I was on my own. Other than advice to check some creeks. Which I was ahead of the game on. I did contact one other person, ilikesnakes , (my man on the inside)asking if he could hop on google earth and find a board field for me :lol: no luck there. Ohio fields are all 5 foot tall dense green weeds and crops..cleanest damn town I ever been to.

I did find a few things to flip and got a quick hard rain that I swear was right out of the movie Forrest Gump! When he’s talking about the rains in Vietnam lol I drove out to a road thinking it was a good evening Two crews a corn snake. Within 15 minutes of me arriving, I was beneath the hardest downpour you can imagine. Rain is so heavy I figured no chance to find salamanders are frogs. So I turn around to drive back to the hotel and by the time I got to the end of the road, rain stoped...I turned around and drove back to the loudest choir of horny tree frogs like I flipped a switch to a bedroom light of teenage angst after parental submergence :o Sounded more like a jungle of exotic birds than amphibial croaking and I encompassed the vibe of experiencing a very different world.

I think you’re on the money with the IDs Gary :thumb: I actually posted it this way to find out myself :lol: and yes, to make it fun for viewers! I looked upOhio herps on the plane then purposely stoped myself after familiarizing with the 3 venomous serpents. Wanted to be as surprised as possible. So the viewer experiences the same thrill as I did :beer:

The bullfrog however is a Green Frog and the Juvi green may be inter grade...idk. It looks weird. I actually have a cell vid I’ll post later where I thought the Green Frog was a bullfrog until I looked closer. And for forums info, Gary’s eyesight has been bad as of late...so he deserves a pass on that one ;) :)

Oh yeah...also first snake found was DOR black racer. No photo
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the_cw1
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by the_cw1 »

Well I lived near Ohio most of my life, so I know all the critters above haha. Nice haul. Lots of storeria...seems like I could never find them in Michigan! Ohio actually has lots of herps you just have to know where to look. Surprised you didn't turn up a rat snake.

Anyways, nice seeing some love for the Buckeye State. Hope your secret mission was successful. :p

-Derek
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Gary N
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Gary N »

Porter wrote:The bullfrog however is a Green Frog....
Oh yeah, of course it is. The dorsolateral ridges are plain as day. I must be going blind, except I saw them on the juvie...
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Porter
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

the_cw1 wrote:Well I lived near Ohio most of my life, so I know all the critters above haha. Nice haul. Lots of storeria...seems like I could never find them in Michigan! Ohio actually has lots of herps you just have to know where to look. Surprised you didn't turn up a rat snake.
Thanks man :thumb: I thought if I found anything it would be a corn snake. The girl I went to see got bit by one when she was a kid. I figured they were probably the common equivalent of gopher snakes here in CA. Especially in being August. But in all honesty, if I could have only found one snake, it would have been Decays! The pattern and brown earth tones are just beautiful and a snake I've always liked seeing in photographs :mrgreen:
the_cw1 wrote:Anyways, nice seeing some love for the Buckeye State. Hope your secret mission was successful. :p


Thanks :) It was our first time seeing each other :mrgreen: She got off work early and secretly drove to a place near the airport to watch my fly off. Then surprised me with the video when I arrived in Detroit for my layover. Despite the distance between us, we couldn't be closer.


Gary N wrote:Oh yeah, of course it is. The dorsolateral ridges are plain as day. I must be going blind, except I saw them on the juvie...
8-) :beer:




Ok, here's the Green Frog vid and a couple salamanders. The little one is the Ledback rom the photographs...










One more, vid of the turtle. I actually didn't even notice the Yoda until I sent a txt to my dad and he sent back, "Yoda's on the belly." :lol: Funny, cause he's not even a fan of the movies...lol :mrgreen: :crazyeyes: :mrgreen:

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Porter
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

Here's a video I realized I still had of the garters...lol

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ilikesnakes
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Some of the stuff from this year, and

Post by ilikesnakes »

rhyno
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by rhyno »

Dang, I wish I'd known about this, could've given some pointers! Central OH has *lots* of good places for sallies (including tigers, spotted, eastern newts, slimies, longtailed, and even reds and rarely springs). Some decent places for milksnakes too. Looks like you had fun though!
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Re: And Then... I Found Myself In Ohio

Post by Porter »

rhyno wrote:Dang, I wish I'd known about this, could've given some pointers! Central OH has *lots* of good places for sallies (including tigers, spotted, eastern newts, slimies, longtailed, and even reds and rarely springs). Some decent places for milksnakes too. Looks like you had fun though!
Thanks man :beer: I’ll keep it in mind next time I’m out that way.

I did have a lot of fun! I’m a different kind of Herper for the times. I don’t use google earth or museum records. I just drive or hike til I see good habitat visually. I did try that method back when I first got back into things around 2009ish, but after seeing stuff that looked good on google earth but then completely diff punch I got there, I went back to old ways. When I went to Washington earlier this year, I didn’t want any help. Just wanted to explore and see what pops up. Then Ian contacted me with and invite and I didn’t want to say no. Then, I remembered Gary Nafis was up here and I hadn’t seen him since around 2011 soooo...of course I gotta say hi. I really just like the whole concept of seeing some interesting habitat and exploring it to see what’s there. I like being surprised :mrgreen:

So, anyways , that’s why I didn’t ask or post first. And Herping was secondary. I mean If you’re in some State you never been in before and you’re a Herper and you got some downtime… Might as well go herping lol

The Salamanders were all found up at some state park near Akron. Which was more of a 1 inch mud puddle I could get to close to without sinking. Other that a runoff into some slate chips that was covered in wet leaves. The little one was found beneath a large stick and the dusky and red back under either a rock or leaf litter...those dusky are hard to hold onto! Like a tadpole on steroids :o :lol: pretty cool. I planned on exploring the actually park the following day. There was a trail that led to some caves. I got rained out though so that was the end of salamander herping and I focused on snakes after that. Very limited time

The frogs were probably the coolest part of the trip for me :thumb: I was determined to find a snake of any species but once I had accomplished that...wow! Those Grays are huge. Coolest looking treefrog I ever saw. And the Leopard Frog :thumb: :mrgreen: :thumb: I wanted to see one of those in the wild probably since the scene where Elliot kisses the girl drunk in ET :lol: 8-) I knew what it was from a distance as soon as I drove by. Saw the pointiness of the nose and was like... hole...lee...shat... :crazyeyes: awesome find! Everything and anything I found would be a lifer , so that was another reason for Captain Soloing the venture. Next time around, would be cool to hit the field and be more target specific :) I’ll contact you if I end up there with some free time again... thank you
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