Pennsylvania Herping August 2015

Eastern Milksnake

Although relatively common, I always enjoy seeing milk snakes. These are just two of the nice ones found this summer.

Northern Water Snake

Here are two shots of colorfully patterned water snakes. The one above is a neonate. The one below is freshly shed.

   

Northern Red Bellied Snake

Two different phases, brown up top, and a darker black phase in the bottom pic.

Herping just might bring you through black bear habitat.

Northern Ring necked Snake

Eastern Musk Turtle

This musk turtle was the second ever found on the property. Musk turtles are very uncommon in the glaciated portions of Pennsylvania.

While Herping in Pa, I did find many amphibians as well.

Northern Slimey Salamander

While walking down to a creek through the woods, I found several slimy and red backed salamanders by lifting logs and rocks.

Northern Spring Salamander

Northern Red Salamander

Mountain Dusky Salamander

Unlike other mole salamanders, the marbled salamander lays its eggs in vernal pools in late summer when they are all dried out. By lifting logs alongside wetlands, you might be lucky enough to encounter one of these rare amphibians.

  

Marbled Salamander

Wood Frog

Back In New Jersey, i wanted to investigate old reports of long tailed salamanders in a local park. The long tailed salamander is a threatened species in New Jersey. In the 1800s, a small irrigation pond was built in the woods. Leading into the pond, there is a brick tunnel with spring water flowing out of it. I crawled inside the tunnel with a flashlight and was delighted to see several salamanders seeping from the cracks in the bricks. Most where two lined salamanders, but one in particular caught my eye.

 Long Tailed Salamander

This was my lifer long tailed salamander. The tunnel had replicated the perfect cave like habitat for these types of salamanders.

Pickerel Frog

Spring and Summer Snakes in Nj and Pa

I have had a busy summer and have not yet gotten to posting about all the herping I did this spring, and so far this summer.

In mid April I started to see my first snakes. While taking a trip to a near by swamp, the sun and warmer weather drew some snakes out of hibernation. I found an adult  ribbon snake a garter snake. This spot would later produce many more ribbon snakes as the weather got warmer. It had never been this easy for me to find ribbon snakes.

 Eastern Ribbon Snake

(Thamnophis s. sauritus)

Spotted and painted turtles began to appear in the pons and swamps near my house. I got lucky and was able to find two spotted turtles on on trip.

 Eastern Painted Turtle

(Chrysemys picta)

Spotted Turtle

(Clemmys Guttata)

In May, I found several snakes. Here are two smaller snakes found under debris in the woods near my home.

 Norther Brown Snake

(Storia Dekayi)

Northern Ring Neck Snake

(Diadophis punctatus)

Later in the month, I took a trip up to the mountains.

Most of  the herp species found were relatively common. These included eastern newts, garter snakes, american toads, two lined salamanders, five lined skink, and this mountain dusky salamander:

Northern Dusky Salamander

While hiking along a trail through a dark old growth forest, I looked up and there along the edge of the trail in a patch of sunlight, was my lifer timber rattle snake. It was such a pleasant surprise to find one in what seemed like the wrong habitat. The snake did not even rattle, he just continued in the direction he was going.

Timber Rattle Snake

(Crotalis Horridus)

Closer to home, I heard rumors of racers inhabiting a near by field. In order to find one of these snakes, I played out several boards of plywood in the early spring, to flip later in the year. Sure enough, one of the boards produced a young racer in June.

Black Racer

(Coluber Constrictor)

Road cruised the swamp one night during a humid rainy night and found breeding gray tree frogs and cricket frogs.

Gray Tree Frog

(Hyla Versicolor)

Early in summer break, managed to get in a quick stop at the pine barrens, as my family went to the beach. We saw plenty of terrapins and fowlers toads, and I was unable to catch a racer as it flew across the sand road in front of our car.

 Diamond Backed Terrapin

(Malaclemys terrapin)

 Fowlers Toad

(Bufo Fowleri)

 Red Winged Black Bird

My most recent trip was a trip to my favorite snake spot in Pennsylvania. I was hoping to find a copperhead and possibly a rat snake. There were scattered showers throughout the day, which was not ideal weather for snakes, but a few snakes were out basking. First was a larger garter snake.

Eastern Garter Snake

(Thamnophis sirtalis)

Soon we found several black rat snakes sunning themselves on rocky slopes.

Black Rat Snake

(Pantherophis alleghaniensis)

One rat snake I found walking a shale bank. It was wondering along the cliff and it was found in that typical squiggly formation they do. The snake quickly got defensive once touched.

Black Rat Snake

(Pantherophis alleghaniensis)

More posts will be coming throughout the next months. The posts will probably not be as general and long term as this.

Spring Has Sprung in Northern New Jersey

This year, winter stayed for an extended amount of time. The winter was one of the coldest I could remember, and it lasted well into march. Here is a vernal pool in march, still surrounded by snow and mostly covered by ice.

The weather finally started to look favorable for a amphibian migration, and I decided to go out. Up until this point the weather was not quite right. We would get nearly perfect conditions and then the temperature would drop. This night was forecasted to have warm temperatures and heavy rain. I headed out to one of the busiest amphibian crossings in the state.

Planning this trip was a guessing game, because unlike normal, the temperatures were inconsistent and few amphibians could be found. Normally, before the migration one might be able to hear spring peepers calling or find a red backed salamander, but this was not the case.

spotted and jefferson salamanders

Jefferson Salamander (Ambystoma Jeffersonianum)

As we drove along the road, we could see spring peepers crossing. We continued to drive in the pouring rain, and we were excited to see several salamanders slithering across the wet road. After parking the car, we walked up and down the section of road, helping wood frogs, spring peepers, jefferson and spotted salamanders across.

Red Backed Salamander (Plethodon Cinereus)

The next day, it seemed that the rain had also awakened the amphibians back home.

Wood Frog (Lithobates Sylvaticus)

While walking by a vernal pool, I was pleased to hear the quaking of male wood frogs.

Although I had such a great experience the other night, I was not satisfied with my pictures of spotted and Jefferson salamanders. It was so hard to photograph the creatures in the dark and the pouring rain. I decided to head back to the vernal pool crossing site.

 It took a little while but I was glad to to find two individuals under a large log near the edge of the pool. It was a much cooler day, so the salamanders were more sluggish, and they were partially buried when found. It was only a few yellow spots protruding from the soil that gave them away.

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma Maculatum)

Despite my searches I found no Jefferson salamanders, but this gave me a reason to return.

Male wood frog calling. Wood frogs have their vocal sacks on the sides.

Wood frog pair. Darker male on top, female on the bottom.

Wood frog egg masses in pool

Egg masses in hand

Back home, the wood frogs were much further along in breeding. It was apparent that the females had arrived and that they had begun to lay their eggs.

Green frog (Lithobates clamitans)

I also spotted a green frog in a creek near home.

The day had been unusually warm and rain was forecasted for that night. I decided to go back out the the road crossing again. As we drove out, things started to look bad. The rainy weather disappeared from the forecast, and without rain, there would be no salamanders. Fortunately, it was extremely humid and it had rained earlier in the day. We decide to head down to the vernal pool first.

American Toad (Bufo Americano)

On the way down we noticed that the warmer weather had brought out some creatures, like this american toad, typically seen a little later in the season.

Pickerel Frog (Lithobates palustris)

Another creature that arrived a little early.

At the pool the chorus of spring peepers was deafening.  Spotted salamanders also bred in the water.

Spring peeper (Psuedachris Crucifer)

After photographing the calling amphibians, we headed up toward the road. The warm fog had picked up into a mist, which gave us hopes of finding some more salamanders. I still wanted to get a better picture of a Jefferson Salamander.

Wood Frog (Lithobates Sylvaticus)

We ran into this vibrant female wood frog on her way down to the chorus of frogs at the pool.

At the road, a few spotted salamanders were crossing. As we were about to leave, I had given up on the hope of finding a jefferson salamander. While walking the road we heard a lady shout out that she found a jefferson salamander. I eagerly received the salamander from her and began to photograph it.

Jefferson salamander (ambystoma Jeffersonianum)

The jefferson salamander is a species of special concern in New Jersey. Just like the other amphibians, road mortality is a major problem for the species. The salamanders venture down from forested hillsides to vernal pools, and often must cross roads.

This salamander did not feature as nice colors as the one from the other night, but it was still a neat looking salamander.

So far the spring herping season has been off to a great start. There are a few spring species that have not yet been covered, but hopefully I will post about them soon. As the weather gets warmer, more species will wake up from their hibernation, so those will make the post as well.