My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Dedicated exclusively to field herping.

Moderator: Scott Waters

Post Reply
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

OK so technically this all started on August 28th, but it was still my best September to date. Last year at the NAFHA National Meeting at Snake Road, passing a bottle around the campfire, Tim Warfel looked at Mack and I and said, "You boys like Me-xi-co?!". At first I thought he was just quoting Super Troopers, but soon realized he was talking about a trip. It took very little convincing for us to commit, and we had about 10 months of anticipation. When we landed, it was a bit overcast, with impending tropical storms ready to hit Los Cabos that night, and after meeting up with Alex Krohn and Marisa Ishimatsu at the airport, we made it to our hotel in Cabo San Lucas.

This would be our home base for the group for the first few nights. I liked the place, the manager was really friendly and knowledgable, there were tons of house geckos running around at night, and it was in a decent location for great food and herping opportunities.
Image

Image

Speaking of food, this place earned our business with delicious burritos, and we ate there at least 5 times.

Image

There was also a decently priced bar right by the hotel, that had a home-made "tequila" that tasted more like caramel-apple sugar juice.

Image

I got excited about going cruising the first night before the rest of the crowd started to trickle in, and although the other 3 weren't so keen, based on the forecast, and the local expert (the hotel manager) saying it was a bad idea to leave as the storm was going to hit by 10 pm, we went out anyways. It was a scary stupid idea, and I took video footage, but haven't uploaded it. We never made it out of the city and turned around and made it a 30 minute river tour of Cabo San Lucas... After we got back to the bar, here's a few shots of the carnage.

Image

Image

The next morning.

Image

Image

Between the taco shop and the hotel was a little boulder field that was fenced off. We saw at least 3 species of lizard including spiny tail iguanas, long-tailed brush lizards, and side-blotched lizards. Here's a male brush lizard showing off.

Image

We decided to walk along the rocks near the beach and see what else we could find. Here's a pic mele of the lizards found.

Sceloporus
Image

Petrosaurus
Image

Another Sceloporus
Image

Ctenosaur
Image

Some scenery and beach antics

Image

Image

Mack showed off his noose prowess

Image

Orange-throat
Image

zebra-tail showdown
Image

winner!

Image

Beautiful sunsets were par for the course.

Image

Road cruising every night produced many cool finds that were photographed the next morning each day then released, and we found a nice river in a canyon and more red-spotted toads than you could imagine. It was a deafening daytime chorus and was done when we returned a couple days later. Here's a few shots from that area, as well as some snakes that were road cruised.

Image

Image

Image

I was trying to get a nice wide-angle shot of a male toad calling, when this stupid garter snake crawled in and messed up my shot.

Image

Giant whiptail. I called them ameivas.

Image

A few spadefoots turned up amongst all of the red-spotted toads we saw on the trip, here's a couple different ones.

Image

Image

Image

A night hike produced all 3 species of rattlesnake and a few other finds, and Tim Borski had the eye for ruber coiled under bushes.

Image

Image

Image

Image

A team work style photo shoot. Notice the beers, crucial to the process.

Image

More snakes from hiking and cruising.

Rosy boa

Image

Image

Enyo

Image

Image

Lyre snakes

Image

Image

Cape gopher snake (my favorites)

Image

Image

A large speck

Image

Image

Coachwhips

Image

Image

patchnose

Image

desert iggy

Image

Another beautiful Sceloporus

Image

And some more beach searching and antics

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

A sea lion and a pirate ship!

Image

Another Sceloporus

Image

In one city, we stayed at what we all have decided to call "The sex hotel". There was a mirror on the ceiling, contraceptives and supplies on the bedside tables, a room service menu with such items as spaghetti, cheeseburgers, lube, Viagra, and alcohol, a nighlt rate as well as an hourly one, and finally, free adult tv, only two clicks up from when the tv was turned on.

Image

Image

More road cruising and hiking, and more awesome animals.

More vertebralis

Image

Image

Image

kingsnakes

Image

Image

Image

Image

Caracaras were a new raptor for me.

Image

We found this awesome coast horned lizard on a desolate paved road.

Image

Image

And then it was time for the fun part. Are you ready for the fun part? We took a LONG boat ride to a particular island. There were dolphins on the way. no big deal.

Image

Image

I have a video on my facebook of this part, but I will have to add it later, it's pretty neat.

Image

Image

Image

We went to this particular island, in search of a particular snake dubbed cascabel sin cascabel. We found a couple. I was just happy to see one of each color form. Thanks to a storm front moving in, 11 excellent herpers with keen eyes all searching, and a stroke of luck, we were able to turn up a couple animals. Although the habitat LOOKED flat from the beach, it was deceivingly uneven, and the miriad of endemic plants all seemed to tear my flesh from my forearms and shins.

Image

Image

This snake was crawling across my path, and crawled into this position on its own, I never touched it.

Image

An island paradise sunset.

Image

Speaking of a storm, as it moved in, activity picked up, and I found MY highlight find of the trip, a blind snake, on the crawl. Studies indicate that this IS an endemic. It wouldn't hold still for me and this is the only shot where the whole snake is in the frame. I like Marisa's shots of it better.

Image

I just got a DSLR this year, and as the storm picked up, I realized I could try to get some lightning shots. Other than rain drops on the lens spoiling a couple, I got the hang of it (after about 2000 shots, I got about 40 keepers)

Image

Image

I liked that in some shots there were so many lightning strikes around us that my shots came out like a landscape in the afternoon even though it was after 2 am.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Many other endemic lizards were seen and photographed, but here's one of the last shots I took before we headed back to the mainland, an Isla Santa Catalina chuck

Image

Road cruising was the plan for the remainder of the trip, and as my car full of people wasn't present for the ajolete, I focused on trying to find snakes not often found. When road cruising, you can't really FOCUS on such a find, other than being in the right area. Our group of cars obviously was as we turned up multiple sand snakes of varying patterns and colors, Slevin's night snakes, and other cool critters.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Slevin's night snake
Image

leafnose snake

Image

Multiple baja rats including this beast.

Image

a leaf toed gecko

Image

a banded gecko

Image

We looked for baja collared lizards in the southern part of their range, and succeeded.

Image

Image

We saw a large nice looking male but he escaped before photos were possible. Here's a consolation brush lizard with a lot of blue.

Image

I wanted to give the pacific side of baja its fair shot at producing as there are a few species in baja sur that occur more on the pacific side such as ruber ruber, mid-baja gopher snakes, and peninsular glossy snakes. We found all 3 in one night, as well as a few other discoveries. The glossy snake was my big target, as it is near the southern part of their pacific range, and the one we found had a meal in its belly, which is of interest as there is little to no literature on their breeding or feeding habits.

Image

Image

Image

Image

A funky looking lyre snake, a range "confirmation" as it isn't necessarily an extension, but was RIGHT on the edge of the range maps. Interesting habitat too, not many rock piles, mostly flat desert, but not TOO far from a river valley.

Image

Image

That pretty much concludes the trip to Baja, next up was the NAFHA trip, which I headed to a week early to go to South Carolina for a Diamondback Terrapin Group conference. I already posted these shots in the NAFHA post, but included them here just in case.

Here's a few shots, including one of the williamengelsi that was found while I and others were camping with Tim.

A sunset view from John's Island, SC where my trip began with the Diamondback terrapin working group meeting.

Image

Whit Gibbons giving his introductory talk

Image

A nice corn snake from down there found on my first night, posed the next morning.

Image

A southern black racer in situ

Image

Went cruising again that night and found a really pretty southern copperhead. First two are as found before it started moving again.

Image

Image

Image

Seining for terrapins was the name of the game on the last day of the meeting. It was actually pretty physically demanding.

Image

SCORE!

Image

Drove back up to NC and camped at a place in the middle of nowhere, and was threatened with being shot for not checking in before taking the tent out of the trunk... Woke up to this.

Image

I love that you can just drive down the road and see a miriad of turtles in the ditches. Here's a painted.

Image

Went looking for red pygmys and found a couple (17) but here's my favorite two.

Image

Image

This SE five-lined skink ate a spider right in front of me and John, it was a highlight of the trip for me.

Image

Image

The aforementioned Carolina water snake.

Image

A redbelly water, although the prettiest one escaped my camera, seriously it was flourescent orange and red, top to bottom, head to tail, and over 3 feet long.

Image

A squirrel treefrog

Image

This lynx spider was right in my face and I'm glad I didn't touch it, I put my snake hook near it and you could hear and feel the bites on the metal. Rightfully so, she was protecting her eggs.

Image

A worm snake that I found on the crawl when our car stopped to check on what tree frogs were crossing the road, as I was walking back to the car, I noticed a shiny squiggle in the needles and leaves on the shoulder.

Image

A canebrake found by our car.

Image

And on my way home, while getting gas and vacuuming out the car, I heard a frog call I was not familiar with. 20 minutes later with a one-step-at-a-time stalk in the dark, I got 2 images of a Brimley's chorus frog before it ducked under the grasses.

Image

I found a lot of the same stuff already posted, but wanted to offer a few images of new animals. It was a great trip for me.
User avatar
justinm
Posts: 3423
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:26 am
Location: Illinois
Contact:

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by justinm »

Andy,

You're a world class herper man. Great post I really really enjoyed it and wished I had time to get out more than I do these days.
User avatar
IllinoisGuy
Posts: 55
Joined: June 14th, 2013, 2:17 pm
Location: St. Louis

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by IllinoisGuy »

Wow, Mexico has some incredible stuff. Sweet post!
User avatar
Norman D
Posts: 454
Joined: November 4th, 2010, 8:10 am
Location: Sonoran Desert

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Norman D »

Love the speck!
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

We turned up a few mitch mitch, but it certainly was not the most common snake seen and we had a lot more eyes and cars doing the searching. I definitely plan on going back.
Jimi
Posts: 1955
Joined: December 3rd, 2010, 12:06 pm

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Jimi »

How about enyo? Those guys can turn up in great numbers but it doesn't look like they did so for you all. Looks like you rocked it on the ruber though - congrats.
In one city, we stayed at what we all have decided to call "The sex hotel".
Funny. Was it one of those outskirts-of-town jobs with the individual garages with closing doors, all inside a walled compound? I've found those to be a pretty good choice - clean (clean-looking, anyway), always with AC, hot water and TV, all for a pretty good price. A local middle-class price, not a tourist price.

thanks for the vicarious herping pleasure

Jimi
User avatar
Blacktail31
Posts: 50
Joined: March 2nd, 2013, 4:47 pm
Location: Tucson Arizona

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Blacktail31 »

That was..................... AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

Jimi wrote:How about enyo? Those guys can turn up in great numbers but it doesn't look like they did so for you all. Looks like you rocked it on the ruber though - congrats.
In one city, we stayed at what we all have decided to call "The sex hotel".
Funny. Was it one of those outskirts-of-town jobs with the individual garages with closing doors, all inside a walled compound? I've found those to be a pretty good choice - clean (clean-looking, anyway), always with AC, hot water and TV, all for a pretty good price. A local middle-class price, not a tourist price.

thanks for the vicarious herping pleasure

Jimi
We got a few enyo, I think maybe 8-12? Maybe more, once we'd seen a couple individuals of a given species, a lot of people stopped keeping track of this or that species and only brought back new stuff, or exceptionally colored/sized individuals. I don't have the individual species counts, but I know we saw 51 species/subspecies.

As far as the hotel, yes that nails the description, except it wasn't on the outskirts of town, it was right smack dab in the middle of a medium sized non-touristy town.
User avatar
Norman D
Posts: 454
Joined: November 4th, 2010, 8:10 am
Location: Sonoran Desert

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Norman D »

AndyO'Connor wrote:We turned up a few mitch mitch, but it certainly was not the most common snake seen and we had a lot more eyes and cars doing the searching. I definitely plan on going back.
Do you have more photos of the other mitch mitch?
User avatar
MattSullivan
Posts: 419
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 2:07 pm
Location: New Jersey

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by MattSullivan »

17 red pygmies?! im only slightly jealous...awesome month, great job
User avatar
Antonsrkn
Posts: 971
Joined: June 10th, 2010, 2:38 pm
Contact:

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Antonsrkn »

Damn, this confirms I need to get over to Baja pronto! Great finds and post!
User avatar
M Wolverton
Posts: 417
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 2:46 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by M Wolverton »

Busy month! Awesome!
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

Norm, I didn't upload any other speck shots (and only photographed one other animal) so we may need to wait and see if anyone else makes a post at some point. We had talked about making a group post at one point or another, I just got caught up in editing and uploading and it seemed like the next step was there to put it into a post. There are a lot of animals I saw but didn't photograph, and a few I photographed and didn't post, and I know that members of the group have awesome shots to make more posts. I will upload a shot of the little grayish speck our car found one night, it's the only other one I have shots of.
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

Marisa has some AWESOME herp in habitat shots on her flickr here http://www.flickr.com/photos/marisa_ishimatsu/ and will likely upload more as she gets to them. And I'm sure we will see something awesome from other members of the team in time. This trip was 12 days long for me, and nearly as long for everyone else, and thousands of pictures were taken by most of us, so it may be a little longer.
User avatar
SurfinHerp
Posts: 653
Joined: October 18th, 2010, 8:55 pm
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by SurfinHerp »

Terrific post Andy :beer:

Love all the Baja reptiles - especially the rosy boa!

Did anyone manage to capture an adult blue rock lizard during your trip? That would be impressive!

Jeff
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

No, none of the rock lizards were captured, and they had lost their breeding colors, although some still had some brilliant blue spots, none were like the one on Grismer's book cover. I think they can be captured with a better approach, we had a long noose but were going after them mid afternoon, and only one long noose amongst several people, with one or two more long nooses, we'd had a shot at a couple.
User avatar
Crazins
Posts: 269
Joined: June 14th, 2010, 6:49 pm
Location: My car

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Crazins »

Norm: Here's one of the two specs I shot. The other shot is kinda crappy, but it's on my flickr site.

Image
Mitch mitch by Marisa.Ishimatsu, on Flickr
User avatar
Joshua Jones
Posts: 413
Joined: August 31st, 2011, 2:33 pm
Location: Vanderbilt, Michigan

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Joshua Jones »

Great stuff, Andy. I've always wanted to visit that "particular island" to photograph that "particular snake." All of my experience in Baja has been fishing. Love seeing these kinds of posts.

BTW, only 17 pygmies? You poor guy. (I hate you. :lol: )
Matt Cage
Posts: 128
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 1:04 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Matt Cage »

Andy

Was great fun and I really enjoyed your pix!

Until next time......
User avatar
Roki
Posts: 199
Joined: January 23rd, 2012, 10:08 am
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Roki »

Great post, awesome pics! Makes me want to go check out Mexico.
Roki
User avatar
justinm
Posts: 3423
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:26 am
Location: Illinois
Contact:

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by justinm »

I have to say I just went through this again. This was EPIC dude. Thanks so much for putting it together. Great posts like this are what make this site the best.
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

Here's a phone pic of the little grey speck we cruised.

Image
ErikNM
Posts: 112
Joined: June 9th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by ErikNM »

Awesome Andy! I am slowly getting around to editing my photos of the trip, was good to herp with you and everyone else!
User avatar
Nshepard
Posts: 377
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 12:08 pm

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Nshepard »

Wow. Cool shit all around!

And as a crote person I feel weird saying this but my favs were the Lyre Snakes, Leafnose, and of course that freaking Baja Ratsnake! Great landscapes!
User avatar
Norman D
Posts: 454
Joined: November 4th, 2010, 8:10 am
Location: Sonoran Desert

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Norman D »

Thanks Marisa and Andy! Cool specks.
User avatar
Mike Pingleton
Posts: 1471
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:45 am
Location: One of the boys from Illinois
Contact:

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Mike Pingleton »

Nice job, Andy! You got some great shots. Always nice to see the trip thru someone else's camera :)

-Mike
User avatar
moloch
Posts: 561
Joined: June 16th, 2010, 1:26 pm

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by moloch »

What a wonderful set of photos, Andy. You guys found some exciting species. The banded geckos there were incredible. Are they a different species to those in the US or just a different race?

Great report!
David
User avatar
Tonia Graves
Posts: 212
Joined: December 8th, 2011, 2:40 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by Tonia Graves »

Wow! You got some great stuff here! I would love to check out Mexico some time but am not brave enough...working alongside the Border Patrol for the last 5+ years makes me too aware of the issues down there. Hopefully you all didn't run into any problems.
User avatar
AndyO'Connor
Posts: 1019
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 7:14 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by AndyO'Connor »

No issues Tonia, other than a couple "traffic violations" or "roadside donations" to the locale law enforcement. Baja Sur really seemed completely safe and I think it is very different than the border areas most of us are worried about.

David, they are the same species as the ones in the SW US although they are a different subspecies of western.
TimCO
Posts: 891
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 11:27 am
Location: Colorado

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by TimCO »

There's some nice shots in here. Good times.
User avatar
TravisK
Posts: 774
Joined: July 8th, 2010, 11:14 am
Location: Eastern Washington

Re: My BEST September ever. (pic overload >120 shots)

Post by TravisK »

Wow Andy! Looks like a lot of fun was had. Some of your shots are really nice, you are getting very good with that camera.
Post Reply