Here’s a neonate we found out and about in South Eastern Arizona. Pissy little guy with a bright red nose. Maybe that’s why he was so upset.

c-bilineatus-080908

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With the rain come the animals, and then me out after them. Trips have been productive, and I’m proud to say I’ve knocked several species off my life list.

Rather than post a bunch of mega-threads, I’ll just throw out my 2008 monsoon season one animal at a time. It seems easier on my seldom-seen free time that way as well.

So here’s the first … a morning Banded Rock Rattlesnake (Crotalus lepidus klauberi) from the Santa Rita Mountains.

Banded Rock Rattlesnake from the Santa Rita Mountains

Banded Rock Rattlesnake from the Santa Rita Mountains

Banded Rock Rattlesnake from the Santa Rita Mountains

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Here’s my second-ever Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii) I’ve ever found. The somewhat surreal look to the pictures is due to a compositing technique known as HDR, which are becoming quite popular these days. Fortunately for me, a goo 90% of the HDR pictures out there are of old barns or graphiti, so at least I’m doing something unique.

Speckled Rattlesnake

Speckled Rattlesnake (closer)

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Here’s a good example of the diamondbacks that live up in Yavapai county. A lot of the same greys we see down closer to Phoenix, but a little better contrast in my experience.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

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On a slow night, we found a young Black-Tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus) out and about. I got a few pictures, but the area wasn’t pose-friendly. Oh well … a nice snake regardless.

Crotalus molossus

Crotalus molossus

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Early one morning …

“Oh, hi! Let me take a picture of you!”

“Hmm, a little out of focus. let me try agaaaIIIIIHHH!!!!”

~ The End ~

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… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Here are some more pictures from the drive back to Arizona.

Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Near Silver City, New Mexico

HDR Photo in New Mexico

That night we stayed just inside New Mexico, and spent a few hours along the border.

sunset

… when herps are few, you’ll get scenery pictures.

In the night, we found a couple toads … a Great Plains Toad (Anaxyrus cognatus) and a male Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii):

Great Plains Toad

Couch\'s Spadefoot (male)

The amount of bugs flying all around us was just unreasonable at this point. There are usually a lot of creepy things flying around my head out there, attracted to the head lamp, but this night was just ridiculous. I was pulling crawling things out of my hair a full hour after getting back in the truck for the last time.

Anyway, that being said, here’s a little longnose snake we found who was as annoyed to be found as we were by the bugs we had to endure to get a picture. He wasn’t cooperative, and neither were we. This is the best we could do:

Long Nosed Snake

In the morning, I got up early to do a little hiking and see if anything was awake. I found a snake pretty quickly. It was a young Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis) of the usual high-pink color I usually find on this side of state.

He wasn’t happy about being woken up.

Sonoran Gophersnake

I spent some time hiking and didn’t find anything else, but it was hard to be disappointed.

Chiricuahua Mountains

Chiricuahua Mountains

I’ll end this series the same way our trip ended. While driving back to the hotel to get Kelly up and go home, I found the writhing body of a Mojave Rattlesnake. Both head and tail had been removed while the animal was still alive. Blood was splattered all around. This happened within minutes of my arrival.

Everything\'s Dumber in Texas

This is the kind of macho bullshit perpetuated by the idiots of Sweetwater Texas in their yearly redneck festival, where hundreds of dusty people too arrogant to realize they’re internationally recognized as personified ignorance gather to see who has the biggest hat. Of course this was not in Texas, but Rodeo, New Mexico.

It’s very hard to spend so much time with these animals and not become absolutely furious when finding something like this. This is, to me, similar to how most would feel if they found a dog in the street missing its head, somehow still moving. This was in my thoughts for days. I’m not kidding when I say I hope that the severed head got off one last bite. Sad to say these were my thoughts … but I guess I don’t prefer to be out in the desert whenever I can because I like people.

… and if any residents of Sweetwater end up on this site due to some Googling … please, please, please … buy your kids a book or two, and make Wednesday “No Beating!” day.

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… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

We went for a short hike along the Delaware River in the afternoon. Temperatures were a little too hot to see much other than some whiptails. I did get some pictures of a softshell turtle. It was my first, so I was quite satisfied with this being the only notable animal of the trip.

First, a picture of what is probably a dinner-plate sized painted turtle making its way across the river.

Painted Turtle

Here’s a large spider making friends with a damselfly.

Best Pals

Another spider hanging out in the grass … this one a little more pointy than the other.

Potential Afternoon-Ruinner

The soft shelled turtle:

Spiny Softshelled Turtle

Here’s an HDR picture of evening clouds moving in from the South.

Standing in a big shadow

After watching the bat flight from the caverns, we went out again. Pretty quickly, we found the second of the really interesting diamondbacks on the trip. A big chocolate-brown Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox).

Crotalus atrox

A young male tarantula out and about:

Tarantula

… and last for the night, a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus).

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… continued from part 1, 2 and 3.

In the morning we went to see the caves. I’ll keep this post separate, since it’s a lot of cave pictures, and this site isn’t called caveexplorer.com.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

If you want to see more, I uploaded the full set to my Flickr account.

That’s it for this one! I have a few more posts to go.

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… continued from part 1 and part 2.

We eventually arrived at my parent’s house in Carlsbad mid-morning. After relaxing a bit, we went out to an area near town to see what there is to see. I brought my parents with me as well.

Here’s my mom holding a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus formerly Bufu punctatus), followed by another picture of him.

Mom and Red-Spotted Toad

Anaxyrus punctatus

Then we found my favorite of the desert toads, a female Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii) out and about. They look so weird, with the huge eyes and bony spurs of a true desert specialist. I was glad to find one and show my parents some of the cooler stuff that lives out here.

Scaphiopus couchii

Then we found the first vinegaroon I’ve ever seen in the wild. We ended up seeing a few others, but didn’t stop. The body was a few inches long … bigger than I thought they’d be. Completely harmless, other than his looks and smells.

vinegaroon

If you try and touch them, they get pissed quickly.

vinegaroon

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… continued from part 1.

We crossed into New Mexico about a half hour after dark and headed East. We found another young Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) pretty quickly. It had a pretty minimal pattern on it, and had more pink coloration than I’m used to seeing in the Phoenix area.

Crotalus atrox

Then we found another Desert Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula splendida), this one a good deal larger than the last one. The first picture is Kelly holding him up.

Kelly with a Kingsnake

Desert Kingsnake

Desert Kingsnake

Next we found a pinkish-looking Western Diamondback Rattlesnake with a very washed out, light pattern.

Diamondback

The last snake of the evening was another nice, clean Diamondback.

Crotalus atrox

… and that’s that for this one! I’ve got a few more posts yet to make of this trip.

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