My family and I decided to take our western vacation to New Mexico this year and will be hitting all the usual spots: Albuquerque, White Sands, Lincoln National Forest, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadelupe Mountains, Santa Fe and Valles Caldera are all on the itinerary. There will of course be herping involved and I'd love to see the endemic salamanders as well as longnose, blacktailed rattler, trans-pecos rat and glossy snake as well as many others. I'm totally out of my comfort zone here and would greatly appreciate any help. Right now my only plan is to roadcruise and hike through habitat. Would there be another way to herp this area? Is flipping natural cover at all productive? And is there a specific type of road I should be looking for over others? As always if anyone would like to meet up just PM me and I can see if I can fit it into our schedule. Thanks for the reading this and here's a photo of a Southern Pygmy Salamander from a recent trip I took to NC to brighten your day.
Hi
Planning on doing the annual herping trip out there next summer, so wondering how your trip went. Im trying to figure areas to focus on/plan the route. Curious how productive White Sands and Lincoln NF were?
The biggest thing I can tell you is to go in in late July or later. White Sands was really cool for lizards and I very much enjoyed seeing the endemic Little White Whiptail. The only thing I really targeted in Lincoln NF was the Sacramento Mountains Salamander which I did see. Cruising down is the Tularosa Basin was some of the best I had that trip (king, longnose, glossy) but I went at basically the worst time of year. Carlsbad area was very cool and the Chihuahuan Desert was great but again I really didn't see that much (atrox, gopher). I think the area near Las Cruces is better for herping but at the same time you should support America's National Parks. If I were you I'd at least try for the Jemez Mountain Salamander but I've always been more salamander oriented. The Gila NF area also looks very interesting and I learned the other day there are Mexican Wolves in that region which is awesome. Stick near water and hope for pressure drops are always a good thing to do as always.
Glad to hear you had some cool finds and targeted species, in spite of the weather. Yeah, usually we do our summer trip end of June through end of July, but in this case, planning to push it back to end of July/August. Ill have 3 weeks there, so planning on checking out a few areas (but of course not too many, so that at least I can have enough time in each place to get that one know ir). White sands sounds fascinating and, even though our focus is on snakes, I do enjoy seeing lizards a lot (plus the landscape/geography of it interests me). As far as Tularosa Basin cruising goes, are there back roads around Alamogordo for it, as not fond of road cruising on highways. (I'm thinking I'd stay in alamogordo a few days bc between white sands and Lincoln forest).
Eastern NM is great for flipping in the summer, as long as it has rained good within the last 3 days. Every Milk Snake I've found in NM was flipped (20+)...from May to September, along with Hognose, Bull Snakes, Rat Snakes, Ringnecks, Racers, Whipsnakes, Coachwhips, Lined Snakes, Prairie Rattlesnakes, and garters. Road cruisng in the grasslands is excellent too...
Beautiful, Brian! I love milks, and would love to see the ones out there! Looking into a couple areas in eastern NM to go to on the way back - kinda in area where plains meets chihuahua and also in Kiowa grasslands (had wanted to go there last year, on the way to Raton, but didn't have the time).