It occurs to me that I had forgotten the pleasures of hunting stream bed and stream side salamanders. This week I remembered. I stepped frankly right into the shallow water with my sneakers and welcomed the cool water flooding my socks. I looked at all those rocks at the edge of the water and didn't need to think much. I just hooked my hand over the first that looked too big for a raccoon to flip (my standard for rocks that might hide decent sized salamanders), felt the rough stone, the weight, and leaned back, the gravel and sand beneath giving up their grip on the rock. I didn't find anything under the first one, but that's not much of a problem. Another pleasure of flipping rocks in streams is the meditative quality of the repetition, rock after rock, working up or down the stream by inches.

The fall is a fine time to focus on salamanders. I worry that I insult the true salamander fans, the implication of that sentence being that I look for salamanders when I can't find snakes or turtles, and that's probably true. Still, the point of this post is that I have more fun than I thought I did, and I've been missing out each time I've walked past or through a rocky creek without climbing down into it.

If missing all that fun isn't bad enough, I didn't have to drive very far. I had met Ryan (who goes by EyesOfTheworld on Field Herp Forum) at his place not too far into Delaware County, and he was kind enough to show me some of his salamander spots in the near suburbs. I could also go flip salamanders in the Wissahickon, Pennypack Park, or any of a number of nearby places.

I saw the usual stream suspects - dusky salamanders (Desmognathus fuscus - no photo) and two-lined salamanders (Eurycea bislineata):

I also flipped a green frog (Rana melanota) that seemed awfully sluggish until we tried to take its picture: The big target of the afternoon lived a little bit up from the stream sides. Red salamanders (Pseudotriton ruber) tend to live up in seeps, which are those wet, muddy stretches where water seeps (no better word for it) out of the hillside and works its way down to the creek.


Redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) were everywhere the other salamanders weren't - in other words under almost every rock, log, and piece of trash up from the water. Here are a handful from Mt. Moriah Cemetery, where I stopped on my way to see Ryan:


Here is an itty-bitty redback from one of our stops in Delaware County:


I'll wind up, incongruously, with a snake. Ryan is lucky enough to have brown snakes living and apparently hibernating in his back yard. Here's one of them:

On the one hand I like to contest other herpers' end-of-the-season laments by declaring all the things you can still find into the end of October, and even November. On the other I feel that sense of panic, that sense of it all slipping away into winter and nothing you can do to hold it back, however badly you want to.

Even now, at the very beginning of November, I am still watching the weather forecasts for one more sunny day to get out and find snakes and maybe streamside salamanders, but I suspect the season for timber rattlers (Crotalus horridus) is over. Scott and I planned a big end-of-the-year trip to Forbidden Ridge a week and a half ago, figuring that it's about time for the snow and cold to drive everything out of sight, and even then we found surprisingly little.

The day was about right - temperatures in the low 60s (maybe not quite enough sun), but we wondered how the snowy weather and freezes the week before might have affected our scaly friends; would they still be basking in whatever sun they could find, or would they all have been driven too far underground to pop back to the surface to bask?

We can't say it wasn't a beautiful day. I know I say and write this a lot, but even a poor day of herping in the mountains is a good day hiking.
We were keeping our eyes peeled for big, meaty, badass adult rattlesnakes basking around a talus slope (rock slide on hillside) that I think is their winter den site, their 'hibernaculum.' When we showed up to the supposed hibernaculum, the heavy, damp clouds were keeping everything out of sight, but as the sun began to play hide-and-seek with us we heard dozens of little rustling noises around us from between the rocks. Any one of those rustlings could have been the tiniest breeze stirring a dead fallen leaf against its neighbor, and we reminded ourselves of that even as our instincts told us we were hearing snakes; if we were right about the snakes, we wanted to give them a moment to settle down before we moved towards them to avoid spooking them right back down in between the rocks.

Well, they weren't leaves; they were baby rattlers! Scott and I spotted a handful (four or five?) curled up on pads of leaves, enjoying the sun beams penetrating between the rocks. Baby rattlers spook easily, so we didn't get many photos, but I was still and patient enough to watch a couple of them crawl around.

This was a true thrill - I guess they figured I was yet another dead tree trunk standing up from the rocks, because they bumbled along with no apparent hurry or fear. I write 'bumble' because they moved with very little grace over the rocks, often having to retrace their path when they came up to a rock they couldn't scale, and sliding off clumsily when they lost the grip on smoother boulders.

Here's one picture I left relatively uncropped to show how well they blend in. Look along the bottom-left of the chunk of conglomerate for that mini rattler working along the rock's edge.


Here's another one, easier to spot sitting on another boulder. [this photo is not sitting well with Blogger.com - click on it for a better view]


We didn't see any of the bigger adults, leaving me unsure of my earlier certainty that I had found the hibernaculum. Maybe the adults were just deeper underground; maybe they were one talus slope over on the hillside. I guess we'll have to go back and check in the spring :-)

Check out a great new informational sheet on our humble and beloved brown snake (Storeria dekayi). Of course I'm biased about the sheet since I wrote it and took the photos, but I deserve absolutely none of the credit for the idea or how beautiful the sheet looks. Jason Poston, the force behind the PA Herp website, came up with the concept and then took my words and some of my hastily snapped photos and turned them into a professional grade (Jason is a design professional, though PA Herp is a labor of love) piece of literature.

No, I'm not only ogling rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) this fall, as wonderful as they are. I am still herping Philadelphia, although primarily my stomping grounds in the Mt. Moriah Cemetery.


It's hard to miss that the redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) are out again. I started seeing them a few weeks ago, and now they're under everything I lift up. They appear as if by magic as the temperatures drop, but there's a very ordinary explanation; these salamanders are very vulnerable to high temperatures and to dry conditions, so they stay deeper underground (at least during the day) for the heat of the summer. Now that daytime temps are back in their comfort zone, they're back near the surface.


There are still some snakes about too. Here's a big female brown snake (Storeria dekayi) I've found a couple times. I went for a walk recently with a friend in the cemetery. We saw the expected salamanders, but we also saw this migrant passing through, I assume on its way to central Mexico.

A few weeks ago we took some friends looking for rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus). The "we" included Jen, and although she's my life and herping partner, she hasn't yet come along on any big mountain trips, for the simple reason that we usually leave too early in the morning.

This time the weather called for clouds in the morning and sun in the afternoon. After a couple seasons of waiting for this kind of day to bring Jen along to look for my beloved rattlers, I had our day - we'd actually benefit from sleeping in.

So, after picking up Ruth and Patrick and stopping for donuts and coffee we were on our way. We got to the trail head and were on our way, with me promising that the cool, low blanket of clouds (enforcing temperatures in the mid 50s) would pass as we walked out to the spot.

The redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) under every rock were interesting to everyone but me, and this nice slimy salamander (Plethodon glutinosis) was a huge hit.


I was wrong, so we killed time eating lunch, hiking around doing hiking things. Eventually, after a spell of sitting around talking on a scenic outcropping, Jen hopped up and nearly stepped over this beauty:
Copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) have perhaps the best camouflage on the planet. Put a copperhead on dry leaves on the forest floor and good luck finding it again. On a gray rock, however, they don't blend in so well. Don't tell the snake; it froze like its instincts told it to, even though that just made it an easy photo subject.

That copperhead was about all for the day. The sky never really cleared like I had hoped, but I'll take the pretty little pit viper. I've seen dozens of rattlers in PA, but I have a much, much harder time finding copperheads. I should bring Jen more often.

I hope you're not getting sick of timber rattlers (Crotalus horridus) yet. I know I'm not. I suppose I might think differently if I were doing this for a living (a hypothesis I'd be glad to test), but I'd be happy to go out hiking at least a few days a week to stare at our most majestic snakes in some of the most beautiful places in the state.

Last week I went back to Forbidden Ridge yet again, this time to find the hibernaculum. We've been watching pregnant females, and then the newborn babies, but we hadn't yet figured out where exactly all these snakes go when it gets cold. Timber rattlers hibernate communally in dens generally set in rocky, south-facing hillsides, so we knew there was a den back on that hillside somewhere.

We have hiked a lot of miles over that slope, dragging ourselves up and down, through rhododendron thickets and greenbriar curtains, over steep slopes of boulders and cliffs. Last week I hiked in a little late; to be precise I started right on time, but another route in proved harder than I had expected, landing me in position an hour later than I had hoped. The sun that day had started off shrouded by cloud and then played hide and seek. It was strong and steady when I arrived on scene, though, meaning that the snakes likely were already withdrawing into the shade where I'd have a hard time spotting them.

I started at the maternity ward, er, I mean the rookery site. As I had suspected there were still snakes there, but they were all out of sight and out of the sun.


I figured this was yet another trip where I'd wouldn't find the hibernaculum, but I pressed on into the woods towards a talus slope I hadn't yet explored. I hiked up one side of the steep, rocky incline and then positioned myself at the top for a descent on my way down to the trail out and back to my car.

The rocks on this slope made me uncomfortable. Large boulders are relatively easy to traverse. Your foot step matters little to a rock that weighs a few tons. This slope was composed mostly of smaller pieces, unfortunately, so I stepped carefully but still felt several apparently safe footholds slide our or lever to the side beneath my boots.

Startled buzzing erupted just as I slipped on one such rock and skidded to an awkward stop another rock down. The thrill of finding the snake hit me at the same time as the jolt of fear that I didn't know where exactly it was for a moment - next to my ankle? Luckily I located the sound about a yard away and it was retreating. I didn't see the snake, but it was plenty indication that I needed to stop and look around.

Suddenly they were all around me. It's hard to describe this moment to someone who hasn't experienced it with at least some kind of cryptic animal. You look again at the rocks and now there are rattlers basking right there where you swear you had seen nothing a moment before. Two of them scooted out of view before I could extract my camera, but this yearling stayed put.


I took all the necessary readings and notes, and then figured I could happily cut back to the trail and go home. On my way out, though, about twenty yards from the first cluster of snakes, I looked to my side and say this guy:

I took his portrait, giggling to myself with triumph and immense satisfaction, and then noticed two of his yellow buddies. See them arranged into a triangle with the black one at the bottom-right corner?



Here's the bottom-left corner snake:


I got a step closer to the top one for a better shot and immediately noticed TWO MORE snakes back in the shade.

They were popping up all around me. Here's a baby a few more yards up the hill:

I looked to my left at one point and saw yet another snake, this one a black rattler in the shade of a rock, positioned so I could really only see it from that exact angle.


That one led to the completely sobering realization that nothing distinguished the rock sheltering that snake from the ones I was standing on or any of the rocks to which I could step from my position. I finished up the photo session and made my way back to the trail very, very carefully.

So, how do I top the last post of awesome baby and adult timber rattlers (Crotalus horridus)? Well, basically I'm just going to throw more of them at you, but this time better photographed.

A week after the post below I did the same trip, but this time I had herping buddies with me: Eitan and his buddy Danny. Both of them have better cameras than I do, and they take better photos too. Both also proved game to try yet another way to the site - a trail a non-herper hiking friend told me about. That trail proved to be a perfect route in - fast and pretty easy. It doesn't take me by all the rocky outcroppings I'd like to hit, but my route here is still a work in progress.

Have I mentioned any of our frustration at only finding timber rattlers at Forbidden Ridge? I know that sounds absurdly ungrateful - like only getting ice cream for a free dessert and complaining about not getting any cookies too - but it's a real gripe. I don't think it's necessarily a problem we have with rattlers; rather it's that we don't handle the venomous snakes, and we sometimes miss the feel of actually getting to pick a snake up in our hands (the elusive ratsnakes - Pantherophis obsoleta - are perfect for this).

I can't say this little guy made us feel all that much better:


That's a baby ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus) I found under a rock on our way to the main site. It was cute, but not very impressive to handle :-)

I am pretty wary of posting habitat shots for this site since I don't want to give it away, but I feel good about these two pictures, namely because I know how hard we worked to get to where they are and how hidden they are if you're not already standing right in these spots.




It is gorgeous country, and I like to repeat that even if I don't find anything, at least I get in a great hike.

Luckily this time we didn't have to settle for just the hike, though. The babies were out in force again.
(next photo is Eitan's closeup of the same snake):


Here they are peeking out of a crack:

Here's one who has already had its first shed and looks pretty (Eitan's shot).


What I just plain adored was the way the babies hung out with the adults. That sentence understates the situation; these babies were almost certainly hanging out with their mothers. We didn't sex the adults, and we certainly didn't do genetic tests to connect the family trees here, but after seeing gravid females basking, then seeing babies with adults (many looking deflated and skinny, just like snakes do after they give birth or lay eggs) at the same spots later, I think we can say these babies were with their mothers, even if the babies and mothers were mixed up and hanging out with each others offspring and moms.

Can you see the babies sitting inside the coils of the adult in the middle of the shot?


Here are two of Eitan's shots:



I don't know if I've ever seen anything cuter, ever. We're so used to snakes being non-social, heartless little critters that don't interact with each other except to fight or mate that seeing all these snakes exhibiting apparently social behavior is especially heartwarming. I should mention here that studies have indicated social behavior among timber rattlers. Babies seem to hang out in groups near their moms for a few weeks after birth. Babies seem to follow the scent trails of their elders to find the hibernaculum (winter den), sometimes traveling together. There is also some interesting observations and speculation out there about adult females hanging out with their sisters while gravid, with some non-gravid girls apparently swinging by to visit. We shouldn't make too much of this, but timber rattlers apparently are able to regard each other as more than just 'other non-food mobile objects in the landscape, half of which are worth having sex with once a year.'

Now, in another interesting observation that is worth some fun, wild speculation, Eitan was peering into a baby-stuffed crack when he remarked, "there's a garter snake in there."

I said something to the effect of "&*//$#!%," and he said, "no really. I think there are two."

I walked over, and sure enough we could see two garters (Thamnophis sirtalis) back in the crack with a bunch of little rattler babies.

None of us had heard of this before, and I can't find anything written about it in the books I have. We've heard of other species, such as ratsnakes, shacking up with rattlesnakes for hibernation, but never a smaller species, one that actually has been documented as rattler food, hiding with baby rattlers. As for the wild speculation part, we have to wonder if this is more than coincidence. The nearest water is about a half mile away, and although garters do range away from water, we haven't found them before on that slope, and it still seems like a strange place to find them randomly. Were they actually selecting a hiding spot because of all the venomous snakes sharing it? That's impossible to say based on this observation, but it sure is fun to think about.

I've had a fabulous couple of weeks of mountain herping. I'll be doing a couple posts over the next week about it (this is the first) and they might look kind of similar, but both are flat-out awesome (you can tell that I'm overwhelmed when my vocabulary shifts back to adolescent mode).

A couple weeks ago no one would go herping with me. Work is conveniently slow this time of year, so I had taken off on day with a good weather forecast and had sent the alert out to all my herping buddies. No one came through, so all by my lonesome I drove out to Forbidden Ridge (my new favorite place on Earth), the ridge where we've been watching some gravid female timber rattlers (Crotalus horridus) as they bask together and get ready to have their babies.

On this trip I wanted to try a new route to the spot, one that I thought would take me past other possible spots. In general I think our reliance on trails and roads can steer us away from interesting habitat that's a little less accessible. I saw good habitat on the maps and satellite images; so I decided to hack my way through it.

Of course there are good reasons to stick to trails and roads, namely that it takes twice as long to hack through rocky underbrush. You might think briars are the worst of it, and you'd be right, but rhododendron come in a close second for the prize of plant-most-likely-to-get-Billy-swearing. I wouldn't have expected that, except that rhododendron tends to grow in dense stif, unyielding thickets of branches that tend to zig-zag up. You alternate between stepping over and limbo bends under, and then you just have to put your head down and charge to make it the rest of the way. Do that for more than a mile and it'll wear you out.

So, I arrived at our spot tired, a little scratched and bruised, and in need of energizing herping triumph.

I should mention that the weather was PERFECT. It was a little on the cool side with temps in the mid 60s, and the sun was veiled but not completely blocked by a thin sheet of clouds. The result on the ground was shadows going in and out of focus along with a low but steady warmth on the skin from what sun was getting through. One of the most important things I've learned this year is that clear, sunny weather is not the optimal weather to observe basking herps. The animals love it, since they can stay exposed only briefly as they quickly heat up in the direct sun, but that means that any given critter is out in the open for only a short period of time before ducking back out of view. Herpers benefit more from weaker sun that keeps them in the open longer as they warm up more slowly.

Ready for pictures already? Cool. I'll start with a group of adults I saw basking on a boulder maybe thirty yards from what we consider the main gravid snake hangout.



More exciting than the adults, though, was what I saw at the main spot, and then back at this boulder (which we call Simon's spot, for reasons that shouldn't require explanation) when I looked more closely:
Babies! Aren't they the most adorable things you've ever seen? Cute as buttons, and unfortunately for me (but good for them) more skittish than their mothers. The big girls we've been able to approach without much fuss, but the kids dart back into the rocks the first glimpse they see of you. See them hanging out in the cracks?

I pulled myself away and continued on a route up the mountain, checking some other spots. Here's a nice adult who let me get kind of close without budging or rattling.


I was not the only large mammal on that mountainside in the past few days (bear poop):
I think I'll close not with poop but with the most beautiful snake I've ever seen, back at Simon's spot when I was working my way back. Unfortunately it would not sit still, at least not where I could get a shot of it unobstructed and sitting in a pretty position. So, I'll post three sub-par pictures and ask you to trust me.




...and then I dove back into the woods and hacked my way back to the car for an hour and a half.

The Delaware Valley Herpetological Society had a great meeting on Friday. Scott talked about venomous snake bite, covering everything from the basics of the biology of venom and its delivery, its effects on the victim, snakebite epidemiology, to some scary new problems like coral snake antivenin going out of production.

Ned brought in some interesting preserved specimens from the Academy of Natural Sciences' collection. Dig this photo of a timber rattler (Crotalus horridus) collected in Burlington County, NJ. That's not too remarkable - Burlington County is well known as hosting timber rattlers - until you read the label and see that this snake was donated to the Academy in 1840!

So the Lowe's in West Philly (the one off 52nd St. just north of Lancaster Ave.) opens at 9am on Sundays. Two Sundays ago we didn't know that, so when I headed out for more paint for our new apartment at around 8:30am, I found it closed.

I suppose I could have sat in the car and listened to the radio, but I was just a stone's throw from the West Parkside Industrial Park, from which that shopping center had been carved, so I moseyed on over on Jefferson to look around.

Near the shopping center they have an artificial drainage pond meant to ease the flow of runoff into the storm sewers - always nice to see - and across the street from the pond I found a few piles of concrete chunks and other assorted trash.

It was wet and cloudy, so I wasn't expecting much, but I found two little brown snakes (Storeria dekayi) under the first chunk I flipped.



They were all I found, and again I found nothing a couple blocks up Jefferson where they bulldozed my beloved brown snake hibernaculum, but it was still nice to see snakes on such a spur-of-the-moment little trip.