So there we were, half an hour into herping, and already I had my top
target in hand. Having said I could go
home happy at that point, figured I’d stick around anyway for the rest of the
trip, just to see what else might show up . . . Another thirty minutes of driving on dry river beds and rocky roads till we finally arrive at Joe’s property, 1300 acres of pristine habitat, his own private herping preserve.
We set up camp opposite a long limestone ridge. Down below was a deep gully with a few
remaining pools of water, separating us from the rocky escarpment like a
well-drained moat.
Even before the tents are pitched, Jay starts flipping pieces of plywood
left behind from a previous trip.
Something green shoots out and sprints across the ground, a blur that
becomes an Earless
Curiously, after a few
minutes of handling, the lizard calms down and seems to fall asleep, even
allowing us to turn him on his back. I
presume this is a defensive behavior, similar to certain snakes that feign
death when threatened. We let him lay
there until he finally realizes we’re not going to eat him. He stirs, he twists, he takes off for
good. Back to the bush.
Meanwhile, Jay continues
to flip boards and turns up another lizard for our benefit. This one presents no problem to catch, as
it’s a relatively slow-moving Banded Gecko.
Actually, the biggest challenge is to avoid having them autonomize
(i.e., voluntarily break off) their tails as they squirm in your hand. It’s a gravid female, so we look at her
belly, and through the translucent skin we see a pair of eggs.
After dark we take a night hike, walking the washes and shining the steep sides for signs of snakes. Sometimes we pick up bright blue reflections, the eyes of wandering Wolf Spiders, such as this one eating on the fly (pun intended).
We’re all spread out when once again Jay does the honors. (Detecting a pattern here?) He calls us over and points to a snake crawling up the embankment. Yaay!! Another of the regional species we’ve come to see, one that was high on our list of priorities.
Unfortunately,
the weather was being uncooperative.
Temps were unseasonably cool, so we only found one more snake that
night, a Night Snake (found by guess who).
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