So I had this past Friday off... which meant I gained a day for the weekend herp trip I had planned on attending with Chris Meachum and Ben Jones and whoever else would show up.
It started off sad, the first snake I saw was a just hit Desert Patch-nosed Snake ... I thought it was going to be an omen for the whole weekend.
After setting up camp at the previously arranged meet point, I headed out on the road for some light road cruising in the area (and to also find the others!)
All I found was this Long-nosed Snake...
and Chris spotted this Nightsnake...
The next morning, while Chris and his son Jackson went fishing on the lake, Ben Jones and I went out to the Dunes to find some Colorado Fringe-toed Lizards.
The place was crawling with grasshoppers which made trying to find lizards difficult. Trying to detect moving lizards while grasshoppers are hopping all over is quite a task! We did see many Tiger Whiptails like these two...
We also spotted a few Desert Iguanas like this one....
including this one that thought the 130 degree road surface was nice and comfortable...
We finally found our target... a Colorado Fringe-toed Lizard. Its amazing the way they can just fly right into the sand and disappear! This little one was very quick, but as we saw where it buried itself, we just dug in and grabbed it.... until it got away and we had to find it again (this time under a bush)...
Later Ben spotted a nice adult male Fringe-toed ....
We returned to the campsite and hung out for awhile. Then around prime time we all piled into Chris' truck and ventured off for the desert mountains for our next target ... Speckled Rattlesnakes. We walked a wash for awhile but came up empty, so Chris hopped on his quad and cruised and Ben and I cruised the dirt roads in Chris' truck.
Ben heard the familiar sound of a buzzer as we passed by Speck #1. It was on the side of the road announcing its presence to all. After we all got out to look, it backed itself up into a Brittlebush plant where it hung out for everyone to photograph it ...
Later, Chris had spotted Speck #2 while riding his quad....
Things started drying up after that so we loaded the quad back into Chris' truck and moved to a new area where we road cruised a Long nose Snake, a Night snake and then Speck #3...
Here is Chris and Ben with Speck #3
and here is a close-up of Speck #3
After that we all decided to head back to camp and call it a night. That's when Paul Lynum showed up. We ended up hanging out at the camp fire drinking beer and discussing herping and herping history with Paul well into the night.
The next morning we broke camp and parted ways ....
I decided to a little exploring on my own in a familiar spot. On the way there I stopped for many DOR Patch-nosed snakes (I'll spare everyone the carnage photos).
When I arrived at my spot, after seeing countless Uta's I finally came across this nice healthy male Chuckwalla who started doing push-ups and head bobbed me...
and as I was about to leave I spotted this Desert Iguana...
after that I hit the road for home.
Dave Weber
Statistics: Posted by Biker Dave — April 15th, 2013, 9:48 pm