Nature on the Fly

Birding during the summer months is difficult, especially when one of us has a life list entirely determined by photography. This means that not only do we have to find birds, but we’ve got to find them during the day and in decent light. So when the weatherman screwed up the stormy forecast and the sun shone bright through my bedroom window yesterday morning, James gave me a call and we headed out to see what we could find.

Unfortunately, with the good weather came poor birding. Along the trail, we couldn’t find many warblers besides American Redstarts and Black-throated Blues, and even they didn’t want to come close enough for some pictures. Thankfully, a fast-moving raptor and a high-pitched screech made me look to the sky, where we found two circling Broad-winged Hawks. This is an odd species for me in that I’ve heard them call, and I’ve seen them, but never have I experienced both at the same time. The hawks flew fast, making photography difficult, but it was super cool to finally see this migrant in the Triangle.

I remember learning the call of a Broad-winged Hawk in college, but this is the first time
I've really heard it well in the field.

Checking the canal portion of the trail one last time, we came upon this friendly American Redstart hopping through the willows. When I say friendly, I mean it ventured pretty close to us, but like most warblers it seemed to stay behind a veil of leaves the whole time. Still, every once and a while it would pop out in the open and sing its song, allowing James to get some decent shots. Not quite the perfect shot we’re looking for, but we’ll keep at it!

How hard is it to sing out in the open? I mean, COME ON!

Other than that the birding at Mason Farm was unremarkable, and we headed home. That’s when Ali called and said he wanted to go herping, and I said, well, why not? James had to go home, so Ali and I headed for Duke Forest to do a little flipping. We didn’t find much, save for an active Copperhead that darted off as soon as we flipped his board. But under a random piece of tin next to an old barn, Ali spotted a small snake that piqued his interest, and he grabbed it to examine it closer.

At the time I took this photo, I'd narrowed it down to "snake sp."... still a long way to go!

It was a small snake, brown on top and pale underneath. This clearly marks it as an earth snake, but as there are several species around here, we had to be sure which one. Turning his binoculars the wrong way ‘round, we were able to use them as field glasses and check out the scaling, which turned out to be unkeeled. That, plus the random dark spots and rounded nose meant we’d found a sweet little Smooth Earth Snake, a lifer for the both of us.

They say this snake is hard to find; I wouldn't know. I tend to find such snakes rather easily!

Since I started herping earlier this year, I’ve seen this Smooth Earth Snake, countless Copperheads, my fair share of Mole Kingsnakes, and even a Pigmy Rattlesnake; but for some reason I’ve never been able to photograph the common Brown Snake, and I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with me. My herping career has been unorthodox thus far, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’d love to get rid of that nemesis herp once and for all, but for now, I’ll take all the hard-to-find snakes I can get!  

Herping the Day Away

Early this week, I looked at the seven-day weather forecast and saw nothing but dark gray clouds with little lightning bolts shooting out of them. Not good for birding, much less photography, but nowadays I can always get my nature fix by doing a little herping. On a rumor that you can find Queen Snakes and Red Salamanders, Mark and I headed down to the concrete bridge at Duke Forest Gate 23.

Not a tenth of a mile into the trail, we found our first herp – a large Fowler’s Toad hopping next to the path. As we got low to photograph him, a fly came by and landed on his head. The toad didn’t seem to mind (or really even notice), and I half expected to see him flip up a long tongue and eat the thing right off his face. Of course, nature doesn’t really mirror Saturday morning cartoons, and he just sat there looking irritated like toads do. Perhaps a beetle or worm would make an easier meal.

Somehow I get the idea that this does not please him...

Herping in Duke Forest proved what I’ve found to be true time and time again – peeling off bark is a great way to find herps! This time, a rotten log accidentally came apart in my hand, and from under the bark slithered out a relatively large Worm Snake. Now, I say relatively large because he was only like a foot long, but he was a giant among Worms. He was very wriggly and tried to bury himself into my hand, using a combination of his spade-shaped head and a small spike at the end of his tail. Eventually we got him to settle down and so we could take this shot on his level.

Oddly enough, the most difficult to photograph snake I've ever encountered!

As we reached the concrete bridge, we found that last night's rains had raised the water level far higher than I expected. Water coursed several inches over concrete, and as our way was blocked, we decided to take a small dirt trail that ran parallel to the river. We couldn’t find any of the promised Queen Snakes and flipping logs failed to reveal salamanders, but while checking out a wood pile on the riverbank, I heard rustling near my foot. I looked down to see I’d almost stepped on a big thick Northern Water Snake! Knowing their propensity for biting, I quickly moved out of the way and tried to use a stick to move it out into the open. No luck, but I did find this much smaller one that nevertheless bit me three times and then musked for good measure.

At least he wasn't big enough to break the skin and inject some nasty serotonin.

On the way back home, we kept hearing peepers and chorus frogs calling from deep in the woods. At one point, as we passed a government building, the frogs were almost deafening. I remembered there was a small pond behind the building, and we pulled over to see what we could find. Sure enough, Spring Peepers were everywhere, and loud! Mark and I had to yell at each other just to hear ourselves! Apparently the males are in full breeding mode, because they would just sit there calling as you got down low to photograph them. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Just it was really cool!

Often heard but seldom seen - until you can find a pond with hundreds of them calling!

The next day I had a couple hours to kill, so ­I headed for Mason Farm to see if the herps were out. My juvenile Black Ratsnake was back under his bark (and yet again he bit me), but I wasn’t finding as much under the logs as I usually do. Peeking under tree bark again, I found this adult Five-lined Skink, and learning my lesson from last time, I attempted to catch it. After one hell of a chase (lizards are fast!) I finally nabbed it, and stopped it from wriggling just long enough to get this shot.

It sounds odd, but I found this large adult rather... squishy...

As I walked through the woods, I heard some rustling in the undergrowth, and yesterday rustling meant there was certainly a Ground Skink around. But when I found the source, I was surprised to find this White-spotted Slimy Salamander, my first free-walking amphibian. Eventually it decided to stop running and hid under some leaves, so I slowly peeled them back until he was totally exposed in the late afternoon sun.

True to its name, it was extremely spotty... and extremely slimy!

Man, the herping’s been pretty good recently – so good in fact that I almost forgot this is supposed to be a birding blog! Spring is definitely here, and the woodlands are full of Northern Parulas singing their heads off, with Common Yellowthroats wichity-wichitying through the fields.

Oh man. I almost forgot how awesome birding was!

In just a couple weeks, migration will be in full swing, and pretty soon all those crazy neotropic migrants are going to be gracing our state. Once the Black-throated Blues and Hoodeds start belting out from the forest, I’ll probably forget the yellowthroats even exist. But until then, this tiny warbler is way more colorful than anything I’ve seen all winter – and damn, it looks awesome!

Species Spotlight #7: Eastern Hognose Snake

As far back as I can remember, I never really wanted to be a herper. (*cue music*) That’s not to say I don’t like reptiles and amphibians, I think they’re really quite cool. Just, sticking my hands under fallen bark and tossing dead logs to manhandle a potentially cantankerous serpent never really appealed to me in the same way that birding did. Regardless, after hanging around a couple of passionate herpers and watching one too many episodes of Animal Planet’s The Jeff Corwin Experience, a perfect opportunity presented itself to me. So I figured, why the hell not?

At the time, James and I were exploring Gate 23 of Duke Forest’s Korstian Division, and after checking out a nice Louisiana Waterthrush down by the bridge, we were making our way back to the car. That’s when James noticed something rustling along the side of the gravel path. At first it looked like a Black Racer, a snake we’d already seen one of that day, but as we got closer it flattened its head, puffed up its body and let out a menacing hissing sound. We had stumbled upon an Eastern Hognose Snake.

Eastern Hognose Snake - Duke Forest, NC

Now, Eastern Hognose Snakes are interesting in that they positively will not bite you. Manhandle them a little and they’ll put on their little hissing display like this one was doing. Manhandle them a lot and they’ll play dead, flipping onto their back and letting their tongue hang out all while releasing a death-like musk. So to me, this was the perfect snake to test my capture technique on.

I pulled the snake out of the brush by its tail, and as I maneuvered it over to the gravel path, it rose up, neck flattened like a cobra’s hood and looking surprisingly intimidating. My natural human instincts took over and I dropped the thing, which I suppose was the snake’s plan all along. It slithered its way off the path and under the pine straw, and we never saw it again. Too bad, I would have liked a better picture of this amazing snake, but let’s just say, herping is not my bag, baby.