Transient SoCal resident

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Vipera1234
Posts: 16
Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

Hi all,

I'm very lucky, and I will be living in San Diego for 2 months to do some work at the University (not herp related ;) ). In the weekends, and during a 2-week roadtrip, I will of couse be be looking for herpetofauna as well as birds, mammals, and perhaps even white sharks :D. When I heard that I would be going, I immediately started researching what fauna occurs in California (I've only been outside of the EU once, not to Cali) and I was quite surprised by the huge diversity of all classes of animals, reptiles included. Now I will be there from August to September, with the road trip being at the end (2nd two weeks of September). I'm curious what the Californian herpers would do in my situation (where to go, which area's to visit and when), it is quite difficult for me to judge since there are so many different climates/elevations/habitat types in California, further complicated by the seasonal transition happening. My girlfriend will be joining for the road trip, and we both really love snakes and salamanders. We are both quite new, not super experienced herpers (especially when it comes to herping outside the EU), so any snake/salamander found is a welcome one. Therefore I think we would like it best to visit area's/nature reserves where you can look for basking/flippable snakes/salamanders with reasonably high chances, we are not necessarily looking for hard-to find specific species, but, needless to say, there are a couple species we fell in love with after flipping through my field guide. All the Crotalus species would be very cool (and my absolute favourite is the Sidewinder), as well as the California red sided garter snake (and of course the Mountain kingsnake, but I think that that is everyones target), Rubber boa and the Threadsnake (because it's funny).

During the first month I will try to find a C. oreganus/ruber in the San Diego area, since I will not be very mobile without a car. I see that they occur in city parks which is a crazy thing to me, I didn't expect that. I think looking for early morning basking individuals/flipping trash is the correct strategy for this, but I will try to find that out along the way. Also the concept of road-cruising is completely foreign to us, we are Dutch and in the Netherlands this is NOT a thing at all.

Does anyone have any tips regarding the aforementioned road trip, during that season, what would be the most effective area's to visit? Bonuspoints if there are interesting birds/mammals/landscapes there as well, we will definitely go to the desert as we have never seen a desert before.
Vipera1234
Posts: 16
Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

And a more technical question: are all nature area's in the U.S. accessible freely? Or do you have to purchase tickets and sign a register? I have found some information about a "America the Beautiful pass", a card which allows access to all national parks for $80,-. Quite expensive, but if you would need this card to get into most nature area's (and not just the National Parks), it will of course be sort of mandatory.
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gheaton98
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Joined: August 24th, 2021, 5:47 pm
Location: Los Angeles County, CA

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by gheaton98 »

Awesome, I'm from the San Diego area and I'm sure you will enjoy it there! Welcome to California!

August and September aren't the best for herping in my opinion (going to be perfectly honest, that's definitely my least favorite time of the year in general in southern California) as they are at the end of the long dry season, but things can be found.

Nature preserves sometimes have entrance fees, but often don't. California State Parks usually have a $10-20 entrance fee, but the biggest one - Anza-Borrego - does not for most areas. The american the beautiful annual pass you mentioned will cover the fee for any federal land entrance fee - so National Forest parking, National Parks, and the rare BLM land fee. If you are planning to visit national parks at all on your road trip, just buy the pass. It will pay for itself in only 3 national park entrances, and it also gets you free parking on places like Mt Laguna. I buy one every year and typically get >5-10x the value of the pass in entrance fees. Familiarize yourself with the types of public land we have if you are planning to do a lot of off-trail stuff - State parks, National Forests, BLM, NPS, etc.

Despite the summer desert heat, there's a lot to see in Anza-Borrego state park, which occupies an entire fifth of the county and contains almost all of the desert mountains and valleys beyond the high mountains. Anza-Borrego is awesome, and you can go essentially wherever you want, most of which has no entrance fee. I've found granite night lizards and peninsular leaf-toed geckos in August at night, but you will struggle a lot more with some of the diurnal lizards like collared lizards. I can help you out with advice for the former 2 if you'd like since the latter especially can be a massive pain if you don't know what you're doing, just send me a PM.

Road cruising the desert can turn things up even at that time of year, and that will be your best way to see a sidewinder. You'll want to slowly drive roads in the low desert valleys for those, there are plenty of such roads in the park and near Borrego Springs. I don't like road cruising in temps above the low 90s or below the mid 60s (the latter won't be a problem in August), but you can of course still find stuff outside of that. Optimal temps are probably the 70s, but it depends and varies by species, and I won't pretend to know for sure because half the time I say something like "conditions look good tonight" we find nothing and vice versa.

Will it be as good as it is in May or April? No. Will you be able to find things? Yes, with enough time out there. September in particular can be dramatically better than August, but it can be a bit unpredictable as always. Night cruising the Anza-Borrego area in August/September, I have personally found red diamond rattlesnakes, Sonoran gophersnakes, long-nosed snakes, glossy snakes, and leaf-nosed snakes. I've seen southern pacifics and a lyresnake on the road closer to the coast at that time of year too, but I don't personally cruise outside the desert much as I don't find it very reliable.

To go over some of your targets:

- You will probably be unlikely to find a mountain kingsnake that time of year, especially in San Diego. Pick up Brian Hubbs' book on these if you're interested though, it's excellent and it directly led to me finding my first San Diego mountain king this past spring.
- The non-desert rattlesnakes can be found during the daytime out and about, especially on the coast where it isn't so hot. Morning should be a good time to look as you said. You mentioned city parks ... they can be found there as long as there is intact habitat. San Diego did a slightly better job of not destroying literally all of the non-mountain habitat like they did here in LA, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a parcel of undeveloped land near wherever you end up.
- Rubber boas don't occur in San Diego, but rosy boas do. They aren't going to be super easy to find that time of year. Road cruising mountainous higher elevation areas in Anza-Borrego will give you a shot, but it won't be a very high chance.
- California red-sided / south coast garters are probably the rarest snake in southern California, so you'll have to go much further north to have a shot at those. Two-striped garters should be totally doable though, I find a lot of these hiking along streams in the San Gabriel mountains in LA, and I assume it's similar in San Diego.
- Honestly... just write off salamanders for this trip. Without some early rain in September your chances at those are essentially zero, unless you want to drive up here to LA co in which case I can give you a spot that should have year-round California newts in a stream. Our climate out here is relatively unique and most of California gets effectively zero rain between ~late May and ~October, so by September it is extremely dry.

Hope you have a productive trip over here! I won't pretend to be the most experienced herper but if you have any questions about the local wildlife, feel free to shoot me a message and I'll do my best to help you out.

EDIT: I just reread your post and saw you said you won't have a car ... so maybe the Anza-Borrego advice isn't super helpful then. Well, definitely at least stop by on your road trip in that case!
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

Thanks for the extensive reply gheaton! Very useful information and good tips, and now I know what to look into w/ regards to entrance fees and the laws.

I was already afraid that especially August would be too hot and dry, so this is why my roadtrip is planned at the end of my stay and not in the beginning. I (probably very naïvely) hope that 2nd half of September might bring some rain, which I intuitively associate with more active herps (but I could very well be wrong in that assumption). I am thinking very hard about possibilities of getting a car, as it does seem that it is very difficult to see much without one.

W/ regards to the roadtrip: maybe my best bet is then to go as far/quick north as I can, following the coast towards the San Francisco mountainous areas, and then loop back via the deserts, hoping that end september might bring a bit of rain. We can drive all the way up along the coast to Andrew Molera state park and spend some days in those mountains, this is also where I imagined the Rubber boa's/California red sided garters to be and is an area I wanted to visit anyway because of these species and Californian condors. Does this make sense?, and what are the chances of Salamanders at altitude? The downside of this plan is that I get to do roadcruising last, and I would have to sit on my hands for 2 months as I am looking very much forward to finding that Sidewinder ;). I really hope I find some cool snakes, it is such a nice opportunity and it is quite unlikely that I will visit California (or the U.S. for that matter) again soon. Fomo man :D

I will try to take nice pictures too if I find something and upload them here and on Flickr, in case anyone is interested. I'll be careful with those ratlers, our vipers are cute compared to them.
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gheaton98
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Joined: August 24th, 2021, 5:47 pm
Location: Los Angeles County, CA

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by gheaton98 »

Late September is probably the best time out of that timeframe to road cruise, to be fair - but the more time you can do it the better your odds! So if you do end up getting access to a car earlier, I wouldn't hesitate to check out Anza-Borrego... I know if I lived as close to it as San Diegans do I'd be going there a lot more. As I said for sidewinders just make sure to stick to lower elevations in SD county, you won't usually find those in the mountains.

Looks like a fun route! California condors are great. Most of the ones I've seen have been in southern Utah / northern Arizona, but I have seen one at Pinnacles National Park where they are relatively common. It's not a big detour from your posted route and is a really cool park in general (you can see Valley gartersnakes relatively easily there too), so if you miss the condors in Big Sur, consider a side trip!

The north is probably slightly less dry, but salamanders will probably be a struggle anywhere in the California floristic region at that time of year. I don't have much experience herping north of ~San Luis Obispo county, though, so take that with a grain of salt... perhaps someone from up north can chime in. While it's possible for late September rains down here I will tell you that is not a common occurrence. I do remember that Channel Islands slender salamanders are apparently active all year due to extensive fog on the islands (and probably also black-bellied slender salamanders, since they co-occur on Santa Cruz island), so you could possibly see those if you took a side trip to the islands out of Ventura, but I'm not sure if they're easy to find outside the wet season. And as I said, california newts should be doable in the right spots since they can inhabit streams.

On the stretch of your route through the Mojave, try flipping fallen joshua tree branches for desert night lizards.
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

In case anyone is interested: I got a good stroke of extreme beginners luck. I found this little guy basking in the sun on the first morning out. I actually walked a small trail, which turned out to be a dead-end. So I got to the end of the trail and had to retrace my steps, and 15 paces in I almost stepped on him curled up on the side of the path. I think when I first walked the path I must have passed it and missed stepping on it by 1ft. Supercool animal and it didn't even move once (not even sticking out its tongue), I will definitely try to find a bigger one if I can.

ImageSouthern Pacific Rattlesnake by M. de Roij, on Flickr
Richard F. Hoyer
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Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Richard F. Hoyer »

Vipera1234
From a very reliable and confidential source, I have been informed that the Dutch are not only lucky herpers, but are extremely skilled as well. That being the case, I am assigning you a couples of tasks while you are traveling up Hwy. 1 along the central California coast.

While you are traveling up Hwy. 1 in San Luis Obispo County north of Moro Bay, the entire U.S. professional and amateur herpetological community is counting on you to secure a Rubber Boa in that county, dead or alive. The species is known to occur in that county but to this day, there are no preserved specimens in any institutional collections.

Once you enter Monterey County, keep your eyes pealed for Condors over the ridge of mountain adjacent on the east side of the highway. Since Oct., 2019, I have travelled few times from where I live in Oregon to the central Calif. coast and have seen 3
condors north of the Big Creek Bridge which is north of Lucia. On once occasion, there were 4 – 5 Turkey Vultures soaring with a condor above the Santa Lucia Mts. I met a biologist that was using telemetry tracking condors.

So if you will be staying at Andrew Molera St. Park, right across the road from the state park entrance is a gravel road that is the south exit of Old Coast Road which travels inland north 11 miles and exits at Bixby Canyon Bridge along Hwy. 1. This past April 28th, an MD that was birding on that road found an adult female Rubber Boa. That female needs an adult male. So that is your task #2. Knowing both the luck and the skill of the Dutch cannot be matched by and American herper, we will be counting on you. In order to retain the male boa, you will need a non-resident fishing license.

On June 4th of this year, I traveled the length of the Coast Road from Bixby Canyon Bridge south to Andrew Molera St. Park in order to view the habitat where the doctor had found the boa. Should you take that road, you come across four drainages. Going north, the first two drainages would be the two tributaries of Little Sur River, both being small and creek size. I met a gentleman on June 4th that earlier this year, observed a Rubber Boa near where those two tributaries meet.

The road become more primitive from there on north. The next draining would be Sierra Creek which is a tributary of Bixby Creek. It was about 200 – 300 meters north of where the road crosses Sierra creek that the doctor found the female boa on the road. Then further north, you will encounter Bixby Creek and enter more forested habitat including stands of coastal Redwood trees.

I you could take time to search a bit along any of those drainages and any seeps you come across, there would be some chance of seeing garter snakes including the Red-sided Garter Snake. And under any cover that could be turned, there could be slender salamanders or Ensatina. Newts might be observed as well.

Your map indicates you will be going up into the Sierras. Your best bet for observing a boa would be night driving back roads in the Sierras. It would help you it was either overcast so as to increase the humidity or if it had rain recently. Best of luck.

Richard F. Hoyer (Corvallis, Oregon)
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

Hi Richard,

thank's for the advice. No further luck thusfar with the herps, but it is very hot... I haven't found a way yet to roadcruise, mostly rely on cycling/bus, far from ideal but it did allow me to see some cool things.

I will see what I can do with regards to those rubber boa's ;).
Vipera1234
Posts: 16
Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

No further luck thusfar, except for a huge Aligator Lizard! Last night I went road cruising in Anza-Borrego for the first time, from sundown to about 11:30-12:00 p.m. I found nothing sadly, and since this is a foreign concept to me, maybe my technique is off. I started off east of Julian, I now see that google maps gives that area about 2400 absl. Would this be considered high desert? I was under the impression that this was low desert... I then drove to Borrego and looped back through a higher road (3000 absl) west of Borrego. In the beginning it was pleasantly warm, about 75F or so with some slightly warmer winds, I was surprised that it wasn't extremely hot, thats where I started to doubt wether I was in the right spot. In the higher area's I hit a bit later it was a bit cooler (around 67-70F), I did see a Tarantula running across the road. I

I tried both altitude ranges as I thought that if the snakes weren't active at the lower range, they might be active slightly higher. I drove 20-30 mph and mainly looked at my (right) side of the road, if someone came up behind me I got out of the way. I can imagine that if you stop for a snake around a bend, someone might go around the bend with 55mph and hit you. Any tips with regards to safety?

I also got out at one point and did a small walk with my flashlight, looking around shrubs where I saw a shit ton of kangaroo rats and mice, I thought it would be good for the rattlers but saw no herps (I did get the shit scared out of me by a Great Horned Owl). Is this something you guys do too? Roadcruising can be very boring when you find nothing + costly with the 20 year old van I was driving.

I stopped when temperatures dropped below 70F. I can see that around Ocotillo we are now talking about 500-800 absl. Maybe I was just too high?

I hope I can try once more.
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gheaton98
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Location: Los Angeles County, CA

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by gheaton98 »

On the subject of the SLO rubber boa, looks like someone found a dead one and collected it! https://twitter.com/snakeymama/status/1 ... 9947969536
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

oh I just now realized that Richard wasn't joking, I thought he was!
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zeevng
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Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by zeevng »

Vipera1234,

If you're still in SoCal and still planning your roadtrip, feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll see if I can help with any pointers.
August ended up being one of my best herping months of the year so far, for snakes, lizards, salamanders, and more. Herps are active year round in California, it just takes knowing where to go, and when to go there.
September might be a really good month, especially if you can fit the Mojave into your roadtrip, as we got very unexpected monsoon rains that have turned it quite green.

Shoot me a PM here, or reach out on Instagram @Z_E_Herping. You can also join the California Field Herping group on Facebook. I'm an admin there, and there are a lot of active users who may be able to help as well. :)

Beautiful shot of that helleri, btw.

Talk soon,
Happy Herping! :thumb:
Zeevng
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

Hi Zeev,

yep I'm still here, and still busily planning the roadtrip. As per Gheaton's suggestion I managed to get out to Anza-Borrego, and man that was cool. I was extremely surprised by the amount of life that the desert holds and can support, the contrast between night and day was, well, night and day. In the end I will compile a post with all pictures + a list of what I managed to see in the two months that I'm here, but here is a small sneak preview (not found by me, turns out that the best way to find a cerastes is to look for flashlights in the desert at 2 a.m. hoping that they are from other herpers.

ImageCrotalus cerastes by M. de Roij, on Flickr

Non herp related: today I saw half a sea lion, it was alive still, but its bottom half was taken off. If there is someone that has a drone in SD, hit me up and we can try to spot the culprit by flying the drone over the ocean ;).
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

In case someone is curious what I ended up finding, here is some photos (https://www.flickr.com/photos/186884458 ... 2483471020) and a species list:
1 Californian Desert Tortoise Gopherus agassizii
2 Desert Iguana Dipsosaurus dorsalis
3 Chuckwalla Sauromalus obesus
4 Desert Spiny Lizard Sceloporus magister
5 Western Fence Lizard Sceloporus occidentalis
6 Side-blotched Lizard Uta stansburiana
7 Aspidoscelis hyperythrus Aspidoscelis hyperythrus
8 Western Whiptail Aspidoscelis tigris
9 Orange-throated Whiptail Cnemidophorus hyperythrus
10 Western skink Plestiodon skiltonianus
11 Southern Alligator Lizard Elgaria multicarinata
12 Glossy Snake Arizona elegans
13 Gopher Snake Pituophis catenifer
14 Western terrestrial garter snake Thamnophis elegans
15 Common Garter Snake Thamnophis sirtalis
16 Sidewinder Crotalus cerastes
17 Speckled Rattlesnake Crotalus mitchellii
18 Northern Pacific Rattlesnake Crotalus oreganus
19 Red Diamond Rattlesnake Crotalus ruber
20 Mojave Rattlesnake Crotalus scutulatus
21 Western Banded Gecko Coleonyx variegatus
22 California Giant Salamander Dicamptodon ensatus
23 Ensatina Ensatina eschscholtzii
24 North American Bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus
25 Sierran Treefrog
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

I'm glad to report that apart from some misses such as the salamanders (although I did find Ensatina eschscholtzii subsp. Klauberi, Ensatina eschscholtzii subsp. xanthoptica as well as some juvenile Dicamptodon ensatus) and boa's and desert snakes, I did get extremely lucky with some other species for which we only had 1 chance. For example, we were in the area's of San francisco garter snake and Mojave rattle snake for 1 afternoon and 1 night respectively, and luckily found both.
Vipera1234
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Joined: December 29th, 2021, 2:43 am

Re: Transient SoCal resident

Post by Vipera1234 »

Vipera1234 wrote: December 17th, 2023, 2:22 am In case someone is curious what I ended up finding, here is some photos (https://www.flickr.com/photos/186884458 ... 2483471020). I'm glad to report that apart from some misses such as the salamanders (although I did find Ensatina eschscholtzii subsp. Klauberi, Ensatina eschscholtzii subsp. xanthoptica as well as some juvenile Dicamptodon ensatus), horned lizards, boa's and desert snakes, I did get extremely lucky with some other species for which we only had 1 chance. For example, we were in the area's of San francisco garter snake and Mojave rattle snake for 1 afternoon and 1 night respectively, and luckily found both.

A species list:
1 Californian Desert Tortoise Gopherus agassizii
2 Desert Iguana Dipsosaurus dorsalis
3 Chuckwalla Sauromalus obesus
4 Desert Spiny Lizard Sceloporus magister
5 Western Fence Lizard Sceloporus occidentalis
6 Side-blotched Lizard Uta stansburiana
7 Aspidoscelis hyperythrus Aspidoscelis hyperythrus
8 Western Whiptail Aspidoscelis tigris
9 Orange-throated Whiptail Cnemidophorus hyperythrus
10 Western skink Plestiodon skiltonianus
11 Southern Alligator Lizard Elgaria multicarinata
12 Glossy Snake Arizona elegans
13 Gopher Snake Pituophis catenifer
14 Western terrestrial garter snake Thamnophis elegans
15 Common Garter Snake Thamnophis sirtalis (also San Francisco Subspp.)
16 Sidewinder Crotalus cerastes
17 Speckled Rattlesnake Crotalus mitchellii
18 Southern Pacific Rattlesnake Crotalus oreganus
19 Red Diamond Rattlesnake Crotalus ruber
20 Mojave Rattlesnake Crotalus scutulatus
21 Western Banded Gecko Coleonyx variegatus
22 California Giant Salamander Dicamptodon ensatus
23 Ensatina Ensatina eschscholtzii (yelow-eyed and Klauberi subspp.)
24 North American Bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus
25 Sierran Treefrog Pseudacris sierra
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