Who says “leave no stone unturned” is just an expression? I did just that on Sunday the 8th on a rocky hillside in the Wissahickon.
















I was looking for an eastern milksnake (Lampropeltis t. triangulum). It was a little late in the season, I think, but I figured it was worth a shot. The weather was about right (sunny and rising from the mid fifties into the low 70s by 2pm or so when I quit).

I had started at a different spot in Roxborough that morning but did not find any snakes there. I did find a small patch of redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). Along with one I found at Cobbs Creek a couple weeks ago, this means they’re back in force. Here’s a leadback phase redback I found there under a rusty can.















The redbacks mostly retreat underground during the heat of the summer, but they come back towards the surface in the fall. As long as the ground is a little moist, you'll find them.

I found 36 of them on my hillside in the Wissahickon. They’re beautiful little creatures with their slender, graceful build and sparkly speckles. Still, they get kind of old when you’re looking for something else and you keep having to pick them out of the way so as not to crush them when you put their rock-shelters back down.














































I found no milksnakes on Sunday, but I did have some pleasant surprises. I found some kind of mouse, who took off with her four little furry babies latched on for the ride when I picked up her rock. I also found a northern ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus edwardsii), which was my first for the Wissahickon. That ringneck made amazing sense after all those redback salamanders. Northern ringneck snakes feed almost exclusively on salamanders, so that hillside is like a huge, all-you-can-eat feast for this little guy.
















































The mice and the ringnecks were cool in their own right, but they’re also food for milksnakes – the mice for the adults and the smaller snakes for the babies. They give me just enough hope to keep looking in the spring.

I gave up after I looked around and saw that I had reached the bottom of the slope. I had turned over nearly every stone I could lift, and it was time to hike back to my bike and ride home.

Here are some turtles I saw basking in the Schuylkill under the Falls Bridge on my way home. I think they’re red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans).















Totals:

41 redback salamanders
1 northern ringneck snake
4 mystery turtles
1 DOR brown snake (Storeria dekayi)

I got skunked on Saturday in the Pine Barrens again, but I’ve got an excuse. I was trying out riding my bicycle in the Barrens, and I think it’s how I’ll be herping the Barrens next season, even if this time I didn’t turn anything up.

I did find some DORs: one box turtle (Terrapene c. carolina), one garter snake (Thamnophis s. sirtalis), and one black racer (Coluber c. constrictor). If there’s any actual herping advantage to cycling, it’s that you can spot more herps on the road, alive or dead. When you’re road cruising in a car, you’re usually looking out of the windshield at a pretty flat angle. Your gaze is fixed what, ten, twenty yards out in front? On a bicycle you’re looking closer in front or down by your side, and while you cover less ground, I think you can see in more detail.

It was a gorgeous, partly cloudy day in the 70s, but the night before had been quite chilly, down to the high 40s. It was inconveniently frigid when I started off a little after 7am from the Atco station on the Atlantic City train line – I was under-dressed, and my fingers lost their dexterity in the cold. I could hold onto the handlebars just fine, but gripping boards to flip them was a little trickier. Next time I'll bring gloves.

I started off near Evesham at a recently controversial housing development. It’s a McMansion subdivision that was delayed and then shrunk to accommodate populations of timber rattlers (Crotalus horridus) and pine snakes (Pituophis m. melanoleucus). I didn’t find anything on the road, and I didn’t see much public or abandoned land that I felt comfortable searching, so I headed south and east for the Wharton State Forest.

I had stopped into three bicycle shops the week before looking for studded tires for my bike, but all had been out of the size I need. My bike is a fast commuting bike, with thin wheels (1/4 inch) and road slicks, tires that do great on asphalt but slice into sand like pizza cutters. Nonetheless I did manage to ride on most stretches of sand road if I went slowly and was very careful hopping on and taking off (the sudden weight on the bike tended to shove the tires down into the sand).

The lesson here for me is that this is a viable way to get out into the Barrens. I can cover more ground than I had expected without burning any gasoline. I finish with a decent workout and the fun of a bike ride in the country.

Totals:

1 box turtle (DOR)
1 black racer (DOR)
1 garter snake (DOR)

So, after kvetching about the high costs and low yields of the Pine Barrens, I headed in the opposite direction on my bicycle (yes, my bicycle! It costs no money to fuel and burns no fossil fuel, only calories). I steered for the steep streets of Manayunk and Roxborough, rumored home of an eastern milk snake (Lampropeltis t. triangulum) population.

I admit that I walked some of the steeper stretches, but I did get a lot of exercise, including while scaling some of the wooded cliff sections tucked in around the rowhouses.

Exercise was about all I did get on those cliff faces, that and a few nightcrawlers I took home for some of the pets. I wasn’t too discouraged, though. I hadn’t spent any money on the trip, it had only taken forty minutes to get there, and I had enjoyed the ride. No offense to the highways cutting through the suburbs of South Jersey or our car, but I’ll take riding on my bike along the Schuylkill on a sunny morning with the wind in my hair.

I caught the only live snake of the morning while I was walking my bike up Leverington near some row houses.

It was easy, since it crawled up off the street onto the sidewalk and headed directly towards my foot. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. It was a garter snake (Thamnophis s. sirtalis), sure, but I’ve never had a snake throw itself at me quite like that. I can only imagine what the snake must have been thinking. After a few minutes of looking at the street and weighing the odds of getting run over, it took off in a mad dash across the asphalt, made it onto the sidewalk, and, mere feet away from its target garden, ran right into a giant monster.

The family on the porch a few feet away was almost apologetic about it, but I assured them I enjoy having garter snakes come out of nowhere like that. They said they find “craploads” there, but don’t see any milk snakes. They let me take photos (with my backup film camera, so I don’t have the pictures right away) and pointed out a DOR a few feet away. We released the little feller in their garden, and I headed up past Ridge and Henry Avenues to a marshy area in the Wissahickon to gather more earthworms and find a couple two-lined salamanders (Eurycea bislineata).

Then I tore down Ridge Ave. and then along Kelly Drive bike path for a fabulous conclusion to the trip.

The air on Sunday (September 24th) morning was humid and the temperatures were in the high 70s.

Totals:

2 garter snakes (1 DOR)
2 two-lined salamanders

I made my summer’s last early morning trip into the Pine Barrens last Sunday, September 17. I don’t mean that as a trick statement, since next weekend is past the autumnal equinox. I could again wake up before dawn and be in the Barrens by 6:30am to cruise over the sand roads, burn through a third of a tank of gas and flip the same boards, but I won’t.

Why not? For starters I’m starting to feel like I’m neglecting Pennsylvania. I haven’t gone herping around Philadelphia much lately, there are spots in Bucks County I’d like to check out, and I haven’t been up in the mountains since the spring.

I am also tired of feeling delighted by a couple cool finds, but then looking at how long I spent out there (nine hours on Sunday) and feeling deflated by how much time and energy went into finding so little. I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy my Pine Barrens trips, but I’m feeling like I can probably find as much and have as much fun in other places, all in less time and using less gasoline.

On Sunday my most notable cool finds were a dead eastern hognose snake (Heterodon platyrhinos) and a live spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata).

Of course the hognose snake was less cool for being dead. It was pretty recently run over, in fact, but hognose snakes are cool enough that even a dead one was interesting. What most motivates me to find a hognose snake is their defensive behavior. They are harmless and almost never bite, but they are famous for flattening their necks and hissing like little cobras. Then, if that doesn’t scare you off, they go the opposite route; they flip over on their backs, stick their tongues out, and play dead. I’d be really impressed if they could shoot their guts out of their mouths and vents like the DOR one I found.

As their name implies, hognose snakes have a funny little upturned nose which they use to dig up toads. You can sometimes find hognose snakes crawling around in the morning, but they are very difficult to find under boards or other cover. With all the Fowlers toads (Bufo fowleri) in the Barrens, I would expect to find hognose snakes swarming all over the place, but I haven’t seen a live one yet.

The Spotted turtle was a nice antidote to the hognose snake. I saw it by the side of the road at a small creek crossing, and I thought to myself, ‘that’s a little too flat to be a box turtle (Terrepene carolina).’ I backed up, hopped out of the car, and sure enough it wasn’t a box turtle; it was a spotted!

Spotted turtles are, in my opinion, the cutest of our turtles. They don’t get much bigger than five inches and they have shiny black shells marked with bright yellow polka dots. I was delighted to find this guy (concave shell and long tail, so I’m thinking it was a male) alive, and I helped him across the busy two-lane road. [If you ever find a turtle crossing a road, always help it go in the direction it’s headed. If you bring it back it will just try to cross again; turtles are stubborn that way.]

I would love to show you a picture of him, but my camera broke. I can’t get it to focus, and half the time the zoom doesn’t work, so I need to send it in for repairs. Wish me luck.

To wind up my day I spent some time on foot in an area of pygmy forest. The pygmy forest refers to sections of the Barrens where the pines and oaks don’t grow much taller than five feet. It’s a bizarre landscape, with the white ‘sugar’ sand and the shrubby trees all around. It would make for some cool photos, but like I said, my camera wasn’t working.

I started by smashing up a cantaloupe and throwing the pieces into a pond near where I parked. Doesn’t that sound nutty? I thought so, but Scott claimed it was a great way to attract turtles close to shore, so I gave it a shot.

I left the melon in the water and went on a hike. All I saw was one Fowlers toad, but it’s behavior is worth describing in more detail. Up until now I’ve found these toads hopping around on the surface, but this one was underground. I was walking along, enjoying the scenery and scanning ahead for hognose snakes and pine snakes (Pituophis m. melanoleucus). Suddenly a spot of sand in front of me boiled up, and out hopped this fat little toad.

After an hour of wandering around after that, I headed back to check the cantaloupe. I was surprised and impressed to see a painted turtle (Chrysemys p. picta) scoot away as I approached. Another three watched me from the water at a safe distance. Next time I’ll know to go in from the water on my belly to catch them more by surprise.

On Sunday it was sunny or partly cloudy the whole time I was out. The temperatures started off in the low 60s at dawn and rose into the high 70s by the time I headed home.

Totals:

1 DOR hognose snake
1 spotted turtle
1 Fowlers toad
4 Painted turtles
4 Southern leopard frogs (Rana sphenocephala)

One last note: My cousin Jeff let me know that the MacArthur Foundation made David Carroll a fellow. These fellowships are often called “genius awards,” and consist of $500,000 to use however the fellow sees fit over five years. [If any of this blog’s fans are nominators, feel free to submit my name – I’d drop anything else to herp for five years and get paid just to write about it] Carroll is a great naturalist, artist, and author who focuses his attention on turtles, especially on spotted turtles, and their habitat. Check out the links below for more information, and read the Year of the Turtle to immerse yourself in the world of the spotted turtle.

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2070789/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={792DF754-B774-4C09-A2B3-B93BD9071661}&notoc=1

http://www.davidmcarroll.com/david.htm

I am starting this post with a defense of two much-maligned species of the Pine Barrens: the ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus) and the black racer (Coluber c. constrictor).

Veteran Barrens herpers call them “trash snakes.” They complain about them taking up space under boards. They don’t even bother photographing them. If they go out on a beautiful day and find “nothing” but racers or ringneck snakes, they’ll even say they got skunked!

As you can tell, I am outraged by the discrimination against these beautiful serpents. I am quite happy to find them, even if they are more common than the corn snakes and timber rattlers, kind of like how a pretty fowlers toad (Bufo fowleri) can brighten my day, even though I find them on almost every trip.

On Saturday (September 9th) Scott and I headed to the Pine Barrens really early. Scott asked me when he should come by and pick me up, and I said 5am. He called my bluff (this is the problem with an emergency medicine intern as a herping buddy; to him there is no such thing as a ridiculous time to be awake), and so was there bright and early (actually dark and early – the sun didn’t wake up for another hour and a half) to pick me up and head out to South Jersey.

We wandered the sand roads, mostly of Gloucester and Burlington Counties, flipping trash and logs, and actually spending a lot of time rearranging the trash that locals have dumped in disorganized heaps in the Wildlife Management Areas and other patches of forest.

I know, trash does not belong in the forest at all, but if it’s going to be there, it might as well be spread out in such away as to provide the best cover for reptiles and amphibians. Our goal is that the next time we wander across those same spots, we have more-productive piles of trash to search.

We did find some snakes under the boards and other debris we turned over, namely the racers, one ringneck snake, and a worm snake (Carphophis amoenus). I know, I did not defend the worm snake in my introduction to this post, but while I do enjoy finding them, I just don’t think they’re all that beautiful.

Is this a double standard? I don’t think so. What galls me about the prevailing derisive attitude towards racers and ringnecks is that I think they are beautiful snakes that are not valued because they are common, whereas I don’t think anyone would think the worm snake was beautiful even if it were rare.

Take the rough earth snake (Virginia v. valeriae), a small, drab, rarely found species that occurs throughout New Jersey. Anyone would be interested to find one, but no one would frame the photos. The coastal plains variation of the milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum “temporalis”), by contrast, is rarely encountered but gorgeous, with bright red saddles on a cream background, and herpers justifiably ooh and ah when they find one. My beef is with the herpers who don’t ooh and ah when they find a ringneck snake or a racer.

Here, judge for yourself. The ringnecks in the Pine Barrens are a mix (or “intergrade”) of two subspecies, the northern (Diadophis p. edwardsii) and the southern (Diadophis p. punctatus). Northern ringnecks usually have blank yellow bellies and a full ring around the neck. Southern ringnecks usually have a row of half-moon spots down the belly and their ring is usually broken by dark scales midway across the neck. This one has both the spots and the full ring, as have the others I’ve found in the Barrens.

















This picture came out blurry, but I thought it was adorable how it was trying to bite Scott.


















Here’s the post under which we found it.





















Here’s the prettiest of the racers along with the piece of metal sheeting under which we found it. Look at that big, liquid eye and the deep, powdery black body color set off by the white chin.

I’ll point out that this one was cold to the touch, and for that reason was pretty easy to handle. Racers are strongly defensive snakes, and, though not venomous, will usually do their best to chew your face and hands off when you catch them. This one posed without any blood loss and then chose an escape path that ran under Scott.













































































Here’s another racer we found. This one was preparing to shed, hence the milky eyes and gray color. When snakes get ready to shed their skin, they secrete a milky fluid between the old layer of skin and the new layer. During this period they are referred to as being “in shed,” or “opaque,” a reference to their eyes being obscured by that fluid.















































The worm snake was also in shed.
















Last, here’s a little fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthinus) that we found under some wooden shipping pallets.




















When we tried to put it down, it did not want to let go of Scott’s finger.



















The weather started off humid and in the low 60s and rose well into the 70s as the sun came out.

Totals:

2 black racers
1 ringneck snake
1 worm snake
1 fence lizard
1 DOR painted turtle (Chrysemys p. picta)

On Labor Day (September 4th) I learned two good reasons why people don’t go swimming in old cranberry bogs.

Reason number one is very simple: they’re too shallow! I don’t know why this hadn't occurred to me before, since cranberry bogs are dug to only to wading depth, and, once abandoned, gradually fill in with sediment and debris.

On Monday I never sank in deeper than hip deep while I was on my feet, and that included up to a foot of mud on the bottom. There were a lot of stumps and fallen branches in there as well. The mud and branches made walking extremely awkward, and in the water it was impossible to get in any strokes besides the occasional breast stroke. So, the easiest way to move forward was to lay flat and pull myself along by grabbing stumps and branches.

The other reason, much more speculative than the first, since I haven’t polled others who have tried swimming in old cranberry bogs and chosen not to do it again, is the burrs. I’m not sure what plant they come from, but I came out of that pond covered in prickly little burrs. Now, I did go in with my clothes on, so maybe if I went in topless and changed out of my bathing suit right away that problem would be solved, but these burrs were a royal pain to pick off once I was out.

So, was this trip a total failure? No, I actually did learn something important in the hour and a half I spent literally wallowing in the mud of a Pine Barrens bog: Turtles are not as scared of me when I’m on my belly. Most basking turtles will jump in the water the moment they spot you, if you’re on foot. They let you get to only a few yards away, however, if you’re flat on your belly in the water. I hope I can find a deeper body of water, so that I can dive from about twenty feet away and swim the rest of the way from below.

Here are some photos of the turtles I took from the shore. I’ve been asking herping buddies, and most agree that the big turtles in these pictures are redbelly turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris). The others are the ubiquitous painted turtle (Chrysemys p. picta).














































































Redbelly turtles are threatened in Pennsylvania, and in many waterways have been displaced by introduced red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans). From far away most big basking turtles look alike, and they always seem to jump in the water before I can get a good look at them.

Here are a couple photos of a Fowlers toad (Bufo fowleri) I saw later in the day.
































The weather on Monday when I went out was damp and a little hazy with temperatures in the mid 60s soon after dawn. The temperatures rose into the low 70s and the sun was shining when I headed home around mid-day.

Totals:

10+ Painted turtles
2+ redbelly turtles
4 Fowlers toads
15+ unidentified frogs
2 calling green frogs (Rana clamitans melanota)

I don’t know Salem County, NJ very well at all, but last Saturday the 27th I decided to check out some ponds there for turtles I could swim after. This was stupid, since going somewhere new means I need to spend valuable herping time finding my way around. Even if I quickly figure out where I am, the place could be a total dud.

Salem County looks like the garden in the Garden State. Satellite images show a tight patchwork of fields for growing soy, corn, and vegetables. I passed some cow pastures too, all making for a strong contrast to the woods and wetlands I’m used to in the Pine Barrens. It’s actually pretty boring for me on the ground. I'm not looking for peppers or Herefords; I’m looking for turtles and other herps.

Looks were deceiving, however. I was casing the area around the first pond when I spotted a snake stretched out across the dirt road. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. I took a quick photo as I got out of the car.






























It was a black rat snake (Elaphe o. obsoleta). I took pictures of him stretched out and frozen, but he snapped into a defensive pose as soon as I touched him.





































He did not like the camera. I gently picked him up, and he seemed quite at home on my arm: no musking and no biting. As soon as I pointed the camera at him, though, he pulled his head back and I felt his tail twitching back and forth (that creates a rattling noise against leaf litter).
















I let him go and eventually parked to walk around the pond. I surprised a few frogs for the ever-frustrating unidentifiable hops and splashes: something moves out of the corner of your eye and hits the water. You know it’s a frog, but you didn’t see what kind. After six of seven of these I was able to get enough of a look at one to identify it as a green frog (Rana clamitans melanota). I saw one painted turtle (Chrysemys s. scripta) as well, but I also saw plenty of people casting lines into the water.

I ended up getting stage fright. It’s one thing to explain a routine herping activity like chasing after frogs or looking under logs, but another to look at a total stranger performing a completely normal activity (fishing) and explain why I’m doing something as untested and ridiculous-looking as swimming after turtles.

I saw another snake on a paved road near the town of Salem, and I pulled a quick U turn to check it out. This five-foot beast of a black rat snake was thoroughly dead, though, so I took no pictures and continued on my way.

DOR herps are always heartbreakers, but the disgust and sadness were mitigated somewhat by yet another black rat snake I dodged another twenty miles or so into my travels. I missed its head (thank God), and jumped out. It was alive! I grabbed it as it was heading into the grass at the side of the road. This one was also pretty calm and did not bite either, but it musked on me, a smell which stuck to me the rest of the trip (a good thing – remember, musk is the smell of success!). Here he is with a picture of the road on which I found him:















































Of course the emotional trajectory changed again with the next DOR black rat snake and a DOR rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus).

What was up with Salem County? It had rained the night before, but was that enough to bring out all the snakes? Do I need to spend more time road cruising there? Is this a sign from the herping gods to forget about turtles and just focus on the snakes?

The second pond seemed like a good spot. I saw no other parked cars when I parked mine, and I hopped down to check out a pool at the base of the dam on the pond.

















What was that on the concrete chunks at the shore? A basking stinkpot (Sternotherus oderatus)?

















It’s not every day I see a stinkpot basking like that, and I quickly made the decision to jump into the water and head it off before it could get too far into the pool. I put down the camera and charged into the shallows.

Redbelly turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris) and painted turtles see you and they’re in the water before you can move. This stinkpot looked at me for a second and sort of took a step. It kept looking for another second, and then it finally made up its mind to jump off into the water once I was splashing through the water in its direction.

Even with all that delay, I failed completely. I was still ten yards or so away when he got into the water, and the little guy made it under a submerged pile of concrete chunks that I couldn’t excavate.

Feeling pretty defeated, I waded out into the pool about waist-deep and looked around. I could see the fuzzy shapes of fish swimming calmly around me – some bluegills I think, some carp, and a huge largemouth bass I would have been ecstatic to catch back when I used to fish. I strapped on my goggles and bent over to immerse my face. Looking down at my feet, I could make out two vague white shapes, certainly my sneakers, but that’s about as much as I could make out.

The murkiness of the water made me a little suspicious of it, and I didn’t think I’d be able to see turtles too well anyhow, so I hesitated to dive in. I was tempted when a turtle (either a redbelly or a red-eared slider – Trachemys scripta elegans) surfaced a few feet away. He watched me while I tried to make up my mind, and then he dove again. The same thing happened with another, smaller stinkpot before I gave up and got out of the water.

My suspicions about the water quality were confirmed when I walked around to see the main portion of the pond. Here’s how it looked:
















All that scummy-looking algae is a sign of high nutrient levels. That’s another way of saying there’s a lot of fertilizer in the water. Fertilizer is unpleasant to think about bathing in no matter how it is produced. Had I been splashing around in a brew of petrochemicals or manure?

So, my task for next week is to check out some ponds I’ve driven past or walked around before and hope they’re clean and isolated. Wish me luck.

The temperatures rose from the high 60s to the high 70s on Saturday morning and early afternoon.

Totals:

4 black rat snakes (2 DOR)
1 dead rough green snake (DOR)
2 stinkpots
5-6 mystery frogs
1 green frog
1 mystery turtle
1 painted turtle

I’ve been avoiding posting about herping trips outside of the Philly area. My idea has been to save them for the winter. I’ve been getting out enough locally enough to write about, and I figure I’ll welcome having the material in February when everything is frozen solid.

That said, the past week I did not get out much locally. So, I’ll write about a concept that hit me when I was up visiting cousins in Massachusetts. This incredible new concept is aquatic herping.

Our cousins took us out to a swimming pond near their house in Conway, a small town in the Pioneer Valley, not far from the Connecticut River. The landscape is a mix of small farms, houses on mowed or wooded lots, and patches of forest. The pond in question is filled by a spring that feeds out through a short length of wooded brook.

Jen’s cousin Jeff had commented that some kids had found a snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) earlier in the year back in some reeds, and we came ready to do some herping. We found some common frogs and salamanders around the edges, and then I strapped on my goggles and got in the water.

I did not find any turtles, but I did have a blast catching newts (Nopthalmus v. viridescens) underwater. I thought that these little aquatic herps would be faster and more agile than I am, but for the most part when I went after one, I caught it. I enjoy swimming laps for exercise, but there was something far more exhilarating about chasing something down under water.

I couldn’t stop talking about it the rest of the trip, and while we weren’t able to get back to the pond before we headed back to Philly, I see no reason I can’t do this locally.

I’m always stopping at the water’s edge when amphibious herps are getting away from me. A turtle jumps in the water, and I shrug and keep walking. The newt dives for the bottom, and I look for another to photograph. I need to hit the woods prepared to go in after them.

There are a lot of tactical questions for me to resolve about catching herps in the water, but early feedback from other herpers on the topic is promising. Apparently this is a great way to grab basking water snakes (Nerodia species). These usually drop right in the water as soon as you get close, but they are reportedly easy to approach from the water. This is also a great way to observe snapping turtles and stinkpots (Sternotherus oderatus) under water, and one guy even reported that you can swim up on basking turtles this way and grab them before or as they jump off their logs.

Now for a photo: This is a little garter snake (Thamnophis s. sirtalis) – I think it’s a yearling – I found at Cobbs Creek on August 10th. The temps were in the high 70s at about 8:00pm, and I found it under a small log.
















Last, there is a new website for an extension of the mostly-concluded PA Herp Atlas Project. They need data on 36 relatively rare herp species, and the website makes it really easy to submit your finds: http://www.ship.edu/~tjmare/herp.htm

I haven’t done much with water turtles this year. Last year we went down to the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum a few times. The Refuge is a great place to watch painted (Chrysemys p. picta) and redbelly (Pseudemys rubriventris) turtles bask and swim around, but last weekend I was interested in seeing a couple other species, both with wonderfully evocative names: common map turtles (Graptemys geographica) and stinkpots (Sternotherus odoratus).

Map turtles are named for their markings: yellow squiggly lines on dark green. Most of their range is in the Mississippi river system, but there are populations along the Susquehanna river and some of its tributaries as well as a section of the Delaware above Trenton. They are known for being wary. They jump in the water faster than most water turtles, which makes them a challenge to spot, let alone photograph.

Stinkpots are little, round, ugly turtles. Their other common name is the Common Musk Turtle; both names refer to their habit of exuding a pungent musk when scared. I love stinkpots. They don’t bask as much as other turtles, but when they do they like to actually climb up into tree branches, making for a really fun picture if you can catch them in the act.

They are pretty common. To find them you need to look carefully in the shallows of almost any body of water. You’re looking for a round, smooth rock or clump of algae that is walking along the bottom. They don’t swim fast, so you can just jump in and grab them if you don’t mind getting wet and muddy. They do bite, so keep your fingers away from their mouths.

On Saturday we headed for Washington Crossing State Historical Park. What the park has going for it is the Delaware River to one side, which is map turtle habitat, and the narrower, shallower Delaware Canal, which I had heard is full of stinkpots.

I haven’t ever looked for anything in Upper Bucks County, and I haven’t looked for map turtles ever, so I was prepared for a fruitless scouting trip. We started off on a good note, though, with a bunch of other turtles in a pond right next to where we parked. We saw a couple red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans), a whole lot of painted turtles, and I think I saw a redbelly turtle.

Painted turtles are probably the turtles people most frequently see basking around here. Adults range from the size of a coffee saucer to the size of a salad plate. They are flat, dark, and have two light spots on each side of their heads.




















Redbelly turtles are a threatened species in Pennsylvania, but they seem pretty common where they do occur. One of the three large, rounder turtles we saw had no red stripe on its head, and I think it might have been a redbelly, but from far away it was hard to be sure.

Red-eared sliders are native to middle part of the United States, but they are spreading. These are the little green turtles with red stripes on their heads that people buy as pets. Of course they get a lot bigger, and few people are prepared to get the gigantic fish tank or backyard pond an adult needs, so they are released in ponds, rivers, and lakes all over the world. Most of the released turtles starve to death, but enough survive to establish breeding populations.















We walked along the path next to the Canal, and after a few minutes I spotted that round, dirty rock that might be… yup, walking slowly along the bottom.
















I handed my backpack to Jen and jumped in.
















Here it is out of the water. They’re not at all graceful, they’ve got rough, warty, bumpy skin, but I think that somehow their ugliness combined with their small size makes them really cute.
















I didn’t notice this until I looked at the photos, but this stinkpot is missing the toes on its right, front foot.
















We saw some more painted turtles, but we didn’t find any spots on the river without lots of other people to scare away any map turtles that could have been there (not that we looked that hard). We got lunch on the Jersey side of the river at an expensive but mediocre restaurant and then decided to look for salamanders as an afternoon-cap.















We haven’t gone flipping rocks in river beds for a few months now, so it was fun to splash around in the shallows and uncover a few of these little two-lined salamanders (Eurycea bislineata).





































The temperatures on August 12 were in the low 80s and the sky was partly cloudy.

Totals:

6 Painted turtles
1 Redbelly turtle
1 red eared slider
1 stinkpot
About 10 green frogs (Rana melanota clamitans)
3 two-lined salamanders

Here’s an update on the baby browns. We let them go on Saturday (August 12) back in the Mount Moriah Cemetery.

They had refused all the food we could find to throw at them – whole small worms, chopped worms, chopped slugs. They had refused them in different cage arrangements. They just weren’t going to start eating without even more experimentation (it would be great if I could find baby slugs, but I can’t find baby slugs).

It was all getting too time consuming for us, and the longer they went without eating, the worse their odds were when released, and their odds were already pretty poor. So, that’s the end of this little story. I wish them luck.