Columbus Day Weekend Part One:

So, the herping season is drawing to a close. It hit me with a kind of panic when I realized it’s October, the next couple weekends are the two weekends before my wedding (busy with wedding stuff), and the following weekends are the wedding, honeymoon (not that I won’t be herping there. Look out Brazil, here we come!), and then I’ve got to deal with moving in with Jen, which could kill the rest of the weekends in November.

I’m not the only one bumming about Winter coming. I’ve seen posts on the major herping forums from other people in temperate climates lamenting the end of the season. One guy in central Missouri, though, mentioned that he keeps on going out even though it’s cold, and that several times he’s seen snakes basking outside their dens on cold but sunny days in the winter. I’ll give that a shot, but it still feels like I’ll be locked up until March.

So, I went herping twice this weekend. The weather did not cooperate. I had plotted trips back up to northern Berks County, PA and to the Glassboro WMA in Jersey, which is right near the Winslow WMA. All week I had been obsessively checking the weather forecasts in Port Clinton, PA and Glassboro, and by Friday night they were pathetic – cool, overcast, and wet. All this Tammy moisture was great to get things wetter, but I was really pulling for some sunny weather this weekend to make things perfect.

On Sunday I headed for Glassboro. I was not thrilled with the WMA. They do a much better job picking up trash there than at Winslow (which, of course, is a good thing), and the surrounding area seemed yet more suburban than ten miles west. I found one leadback-morph redback salamander (Plethodon cinereus). That was it.

I tried the Winslow WMA, but even checking all my favorite trash I found nothing at all. I drove home depressed.

(Stay tuned for the uplifting Part II!)

Redback salamander: 1