Species Spotlight #20: Green Frog

I hear it all the time. Every time I pass a pond rife with duckweed, or a stagnant canal, or a streamhead. A distinct sound, like the bottom string of a banjo struck by an untrained student. Bonk! Always once, never in succession. This is the sound of a Green Frog. And they are hard to find!

A month or so ago, Ali and I found a small pool that had a Green Frog calling from it. There was nowhere to hide, no nooks, crannies, or thick vegetation. We found a large Bullfrog vocalizing from a low-hanging branch, but still the Green Frog called, and we couldn’t find it. That’s when we found a long tunnel dug into the earth, flooded with water until there was barely any space to rest. Still the Green Frog called.

We were never able to find that specific individual, but I’ve seen Green Frogs before. When James and I visited Howell Woods last summer, the resident park ranger spun a yarn about a Bullfrog that would sit at the edge of an artificial pool, waiting for hummingbirds to come and drink before striking with deadly force. Of course I didn’t believe the story, but once I looked down into the pool, I saw a very similar individual – a Green Frog lay among the lilies.

It’s a difficult identification, and it’s no wonder the park ranger didn’t note the caudal ridges that differentiated this individual from the closely related Bullfrog. It’s a frog that’s often heard but rarely seen. Yet they’re always present, hidden in the pond scum or under a muddy ledge. Still the Green Frog lives, oblivious to all these troubles.

Species Spotlight #19: Cope's Gray Treefrog

I’ve gotta say, I had every intention of writing another edition of The Usual Suspects tonight. But as I was dropping my brother off after our weekly bar trivia night, I heard a familiar sound emanating from the next road over. Cutting through the humid air and din of electrical wires was a distinctly alto guuuuurrrrrr. And again: guuuuuurrrrrrrr…

Amazingly enough, I find Cope’s Gray Treefrogs to have quite the distinctive voice. Among frogs, that is. But if you’ve ever been hanging outside sometime around sunset, you might hear an altogether similar sound coming from a pair of birds in the canopy. For whatever reason, the treefrog’s song sounds exactly like the call of a Great Crested Flycatcher. But sometime in the night, the flycatchers will stop calling to each other, and the treefrog chorus will begin.

Check out that crazy patterning in its eyes! I'm not sure why frogs evolved this way, but it's awesome they did.

I’ve never found one of these guys actually calling mid-song, like I did with the Spring Peepers a couple months ago. But every once in a while, on a humid night in summer, I’ll find one clinging to the side of a building under a floodlight, perhaps attracted to the multitude of insects flitting back and forth. The one you see above decided to continue his nightly vigil until midday, and we were able to photograph him. To this day, it remains one of our coolest nature shots, and one we’re not likely to out-do anytime soon.

Species Spotlight #18: California Kingsnake

James and I were at San Elijo Lagoon near Encinitas, finding awesome birds like American Bittern and breeding plumaged American Avocet. While I was scoping the far impoundments for Long-billed Dowitcher, I heard an odd call, and immediately I turned my attention to the bush behind me. Meanwhile, James decided he would scout up the road a bit, and when my mystery bird turned out to be nothing more than a Common Yellowthroat (man they sound different from my eastern birds!), I decided to follow James’s tracks in the sand.

Right before we met up, I noticed something in the road between us. I thought it was a stick at first, but after getting it in my binocs, it turned out to be a beautiful California Kingsnake! Now, having never seen any other subspecies of Common Kingsnake, I’m not quite sure what the difference is, but I think it’s got something to do with the thickness of the pale striping. Still, it was a brilliant-looking snake, and a really confiding one at that.

Contrary to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, this is not the same thing as a sidewinder.

James tried to sneak a little closer and photograph it in macro, but the kingsnake quickly slithered itself off the trail and into the nearby scrub. For the rest of the trip, I’d only see one more snake (a nice California Whipsnake at Cabrillo, but no pictures of that one unfortunately). So in the absence of rattlers, racers, and the rest, this shot of a sweet California Kingsnake is the only memento I have of California’s awesome serpents.

Species Spotlight #17: California Sea Lion

North Carolina doesn’t really get seals. At least, not like they do in the rest of the country. Sure you can get the odd Harbor Seal in winter if you look in the right spot (I’ve seen just one at Oregon Inlet), but it’s not like they swarm over docks and buoys like they do in much of the northeast. Likewise, in California, seals are just a part of life. Well, not seals technically. No, these eared behemoths in the family Otariidae are sea lions.

We first spotted the ubiquitous California Sea Lion in the middle of San Diego bay, where they pile by the hundreds onto floating platforms next to the naval docks. As we approached, we could hear their bellowing barks as they called out to each other, that classic seal sound you hear in the old movies – orf! orf! orf! We watched them slide into the water, transforming from clumsy beast to graceful swimmer, turning and rolling in the ocean as they searched for food.

In colloquial Spanish, they call them los lobos del mar: the wolves of the sea.

That could have been the last we saw of these magnificent creatures, but we took a small side trip down to La Jolla Cove one day. As the Brown Pelicans nested on the cliff face and the Brandt’s Cormorants roosted along the precipice, a large pod of California Sea Lions swam in a little inlet inside the kelp line. Even at this distance, we could clearly see most of the pod were smaller females, with the one big bull seen above swimming among them. As the sea lions swam closer, they became suddenly juxtaposed against seemingly insignificant snorkelers looking the bright orange Garibaldi fish you can see swimming just under the ocean’s surface. The sea lions paid the potential prey little attention, as over the years these animals have become accustomed to life with humans. But it’s clear that humans aren’t the ones who rule the seas in San Diego – it’s el lobo del mar. The California Sea Lion.

Species Spotlight #16: Western Fence Lizard

While birding in San Diego, Cabrillo National Monument became one of my go-to spots: the habitat was nice, the birds were plentiful, and during the week there weren’t a whole lot of people. Plus, the it was really close to the place I was staying, and the while you had to pay an entrance fee, the pass you got lasted a whole week. The only problem, however, is that the place didn’t open til 9am, which is much too late for a jet-lagged East-Coaster.

Luckily, the nearby Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery is a nice spot in its own right. Housing the graves of countless armed service members, the steep chaparral hillsides that line the cemetery are filled with birds – mostly common stuff like California Thrasher, Spotted Towhee, and Ash-throated Flycatcher, but all new birds for me! James and I visited one day after birding the whole of Cabrillo (and very successfully at that), and as we watched Western Kingbirds singing from the tree-tops James photographed this lizard lounging along one of the many stone walls in the area.

Looks like it belongs in 60 Million Years, BC!
Speaking of which - Raquel Welch is like 71 this year! Who knew?

It’s a Western Fence Lizard, and like its name suggest, it’s closely related to the Eastern Fence Lizard we get out in North Carolina. Really closely related, as a matter of fact – I probably couldn’t tell you the differences between the two species except that we totally found this one in California. Still, fence lizards are pretty cool, and I’ll take an awesome lizard any day of the week!

Species Spotlight #15: Side-blotched Lizard

I’m not much of a herper. Don’t get me wrong, I think reptiles are pretty awesome; it’s just that I’ve never actively sought them out, nor have I relished the thought of trying to identify some of the more cryptic ones (I mean, am I the only one who finds turtles incredibly difficult?). So here I had this unidentified lizard from our trip to California laying around on my hard-drive with no clue as to its true identity, so I did the only thing a non-herper can do – I asked for help.

Thankfully, in any community of birders, there’s always a bit of overlap in knowledge. Sure I may not be able to identify every lizard I see, but if you ever need to know something about dinosaurs or early bird evolution (not likely), I’m your guy. I asked a bunch of young birders I know to help me identify this lizard, and sure enough someone familiar with southwestern lizards answered my plea. Now, there are a couple things confounding the ID here – first, and perhaps most notably, the lizard has autotomized a good portion of his tail (i.e., he shed it as part of some defensive behavior), and judging by the fact he’s still alive, it worked. But now I can’t get a good read on how long it may have been, or its pattern, so it’s completely useless to me now. Secondly, the lizard’s head seems proportionally large compared to his body, indicating he’s a juvenile. With many animals, including lizards, juveniles have different color patterns than adults, so just going through pictures of southern California lizards on the internet wasn’t going to help me in the slightest.

Talk about blending in to your surroundings!

However, after a bit of discourse and a lot of process of elimination, we got an answer. This little mite-ridden juvenile James and I found atop a cliff near the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument was a Side-blotched Lizard, something fairly common in the San Diego area, but completely foreign to us. The thing had been a complete mystery for over a year, so it felt really good to finally have a one-hundred percent positive, unequivocal, and definitive identification. If only every reptile could be so easy.

Species Spotlight #14: Brush Rabbit

Last week, we highlighted that common rabbit of southern California, the Desert Cottontail. But like North Carolina, where we have the more common Eastern Cottontail but the rarely seen Marsh Rabbit, southern California has its own second, cryptic, and rarely seen species – the Brush Rabbit.

Unlike the Desert Cottontail, which inhabits the dry and sandy areas of San Diego, the Brush Rabbit is a specialized resident of the chaparral which lines the coastal cliffs that grade into the Pacific Ocean. While its xeric cousin is quite conspicuous, the Brush Rabbit prefers to skulk and hide in its habitat of scrub and sage, much like the Marsh Rabbit does around here. Even though we had decent pictures of these two rabbits, I still found identification difficult. I definitely felt I had two different species – this one lacked the rufous nape and seemed slighter than the Cottontail – but I couldn’t be sure, until I learned a little trick online. The Desert Cottontail will always show a black tip to the ears, while the Brush Rabbit shows none. Here, we can clearly see the lack of black-tipped ears, thus solidifying its identification.

This guy looks more like our cottontails, but is rather distantly related.

James and I found this particular Brush Rabbit at Cabrillo National Monument, as we watched birds at the famous location known as ‘The Drip’. While Black-headed Grosbeaks and Bell’s Vireos drank from the leaking faucet, this little guy fed among the dry leaf litter not feet from us, completely oblivious to our presence. Good for us, of course, but perhaps he should be more mindful of the local wildlife, like the California Whipsnake I found at this very location just a day later!

Species Spotlight #13: Desert Cottontail

Like I’ve mentioned several times before, the most common mammal in North Carolina is our omnipresent Eastern Gray Squirrel, and in San Diego they’ve got an equivalent – last week’s California Ground Squirrel. But our second most common mammal is the fairly ubiquitous Eastern Cottontail, a medium-sized but incredibly skittish rabbit that can be found foraging on grasses in parks, gardens, and suburban lawns. Not to be outdone, San Diego has their own version, a rabbit that in the absence of greenery instead lives in brushy, dry, and dusty areas throughout California. I present to you the Desert Cottontail.

Don’t be fooled by its moniker – the Desert Cottontail is just as likely to be found in suburbs as the Eastern Cottontail, only instead of living off of manicured lawns and hiding under dense foliage, it thrives in the canyons that run between neighborhoods, blending in surprisingly well with its drab surroundings. When I first encountered these large rabbits, I found myself struck by how colorful they were compared to their Eastern relatives. Where our cottontails are uniformly brown all over, the Desert Cottontail sports a pelt of intricate tans and grays, punctuated by a gaudy (for a rabbit) nape that shines bright rufous in the sun. Quite the departure from what I’m used to!

It's either deal with us humans or jump in the river. I think he's chosen wisely.

While I’d seen these guys all around during my early expeditions in San Diego, James and I ran into this guy on a small bike trail that runs along the San Diego River towards the ocean (but to be fair, pretty much everything in San Diego runs towards the ocean). As odd as it seems, we found this specialized desert dweller under a highway overpass where the only shelter came from the sparse shrubbery lining a concrete barrier. No way an Eastern Cottontail would expose himself to such conditions, and yet here in residential San Diego, this Desert Cottontail found himself right at home.

Species Spotlight #12: California Ground Squirrel

I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate the drastic change in fauna between North Carolina and California than to compare their two most common mammals. Last week, I showcased the Eastern Gray Squirrel, a species that can be found in any environment at any time of the year. It’s an arboreal specialist, jumping from treetop to treetop, clambering up and down the loose bark at speeds only a highly evolved animal could attain. However, there’s one major difference in the habitats present in southern California – they don't have trees, not like the hundred-footers we can get around here anyway. As such, the common squirrels there have had to evolve a much more terrestrial lifestyle – and thus I present you the California Ground Squirrel.

Perhaps he's just looking for an afternoon sugar rush?

James first photographed the ground squirrels several years before on a past trip out west. He found the one you see above trying to break into a tube of Mentos, presumably to improve his acorn-breath. But the picture exemplifies the adaptation of these squirrels to an urban environment much like their brethren from the east, even without the aid of trees. I first encountered the squirrels on that very first day in San Diego, at Famosa Slough. Walking along the path, I saw something dive behind a hillside of low-lying vines, and immediately I thought it must be something exotic like the crazy western birds I’d been encountering. Alas, I found only a squirrel, albeit a rather more colorful one than I’m used to on the east coast – it’s mostly brown, but with a bright white collar that grades into a series of spots along its back. Not bad looking, for a squirrel!

They live up to their name - I don't think I ever saw one more than three feet off the ground!

When I say these things were everywhere, I mean everywhere. When we traveled up to Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains, the bird life around us changed – Mountain Chickadees instead of Bushtits, Stellar’s Jays instead of scrub jays, and Band-tailed Pigeons instead of Mourning Doves. But the squirrels remained the same, and James managed photograph this one in the late afternoon sun as he fed rather nonchalantly near our campsite. Just like the squirrels we found in San Diego, and just like the squirrels we’ve got back home.

Species Spotlight #11: Eastern Gray Squirrel

“Yet I assume you don’t share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you? … But they’re both rodents, are they not? And except for the tail they even rather look alike, don’t they?”

– Colonel Hans Landa, Inglourious Basterds

This past weekend, I found myself walking down a forested trail at the local birding hotspot Mason Farm when suddenly I heard a rustling in the dead leaves to my right. My immediate instinct told me to find the source of the sound because it was probably a bird, right? No, of course, it was a squirrel, an Eastern Gray Squirrel to be exact. And then I heard rustling to my left – a second squirrel, and then a third along the trail in front of me and a fourth calling from a limb overhead.

That’s four squirrels in less than twenty feet’s worth of trail! These Eastern Gray Squirrels are by far the most common mammal in North Carolina, and you can find them pretty much anywhere, rural or urban. But why are squirrels so successful? I mean, as the shrewd Colonel Hans Landa put it, they’re basically just glorified rats with bushy tails. But there’s really more to it than that – squirrels are rodents more or less specialized for an arboreal lifestyle, and there are a lot of trees on the east coast. More so in the past than now, but squirrels appear readily adaptable, and have taken to urban living just as well as they did to their forested homes of yore.

Make no mistake - behind that blank state is a devious mastermind of an animal...

This particular squirrel was photographed by James coming to our bird feeders at home. In the winter, the squirrels will often feed alongside the towhees, juncos, and other ground-loving birds. Unfortunately, the squirrels will also find many innovative ways to break into our carefully guarded bird feeders, no matter the precautions we take. And perhaps that’s why they’re so successful – like most humans, or my dog, squirrels stand paramount among the mammals as an animal willing to travel great lengths to obtain food. No matter if it’s a trash can, a bird feeder, or an oak tree flush with acorns, a squirrel will find food even if it means competing with three other squirrels to find every morsel along a random trail in Mason Farm. It's really too bad they're so common –aside from that, they're actually pretty cool when you think about it!

Species Spotlight #10: Five-lined Skink

Around these parts, we’ve got this lizard. Sometimes you’ll walk outside and it’s basking on your porch, or perhaps it’s scurrying away into the underbrush as you walk up your driveway. Whatever the case, these things are everywhere, without a doubt the most common reptile I run into. When I was growing up, I called ‘em Blue-tailed Skinks, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t until years later I learned their true nature.

In fact, they’re called Five-lined Skinks. The blue tail only shows up in juveniles, and for some reason, perhaps lack of experience in evading predators, this is the form I always seem to find. It’s actually quite uncommon that I’ll run across an adult of this species, though once or twice I’ve run into a big red-headed male. No, it’s the juveniles I always find, and it’s their blue tails I’ll remember them by.

Would it be as cool if the tail wasn't blue? Not in the slightest, so thank God it is!

James and I found this particular individual along a creek that runs through Duke Forest. Skinks like this seem very skittish to me, and this guy definitely stuck around longer than the average individual, allowing James just enough time to snap the picture. While we’ve never gotten that perfect shot, this picture is more than enough reminder of the awesome little lizard that we can find almost any day of the year even in the middle of urban North Carolina.

Species Spotlight #9: White-tailed Deer

I don’t remember every experience I’ve ever had with a White-tailed Deer, but I do remember a few good ones. There’s the time I was looking for American Woodcock at Mason Farm in the early twilight when I spooked one, and it ran across the field with its tail up in the air, screaming bloody murder the whole way. Fine way to start an evening of solo nightbirding. Then there’s the time near my apartment when, around midnight, I saw a deer feeding on the lawn, and I decided to inch as close as I could – she didn’t bolt until I was within ten feet of her! There’s that time when James and I visited Yates Mill and we flushed a fawn from right next to us, who ran less than fifty feet before turning and staring at us from the path. And then there’s this time.

James and I were visiting Lake Crabtree to find things like Bank Swallows and Bald Eagles, and ducks (0 for 3, though we did find a nice Caspian Tern), and while walking back from the causeway we saw movement off to our right – the deer you see below, frozen in her steps, watching us warily. Sure, most deers do that, but she seemed a little more cautious, and for good reason. That’s what makes this story so special – she’s got a large distended belly, and her teats are just starting to become enlarged. This isn’t just any deer. She’s pregnant.

She was standing absolutely motionless here - not even a flip of her ear.

It’s the first and only time I’ve been able to view a wild animal and identify its pregnancy, which is odd when you think about it, because White-tailed Deer are pretty common around here. Still, I enjoy them every time I get to see them. It’s good to know that no matter how urban an environment you may live in, there’s still nature a lot all around you, just you may not be able to see it.

Species Spotlight #8: Marsh Rabbit

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – one of my favorite parts about birding is discovering the non-avian aspects of nature while I’m in the field. As far back as I can remember, I grew up with Eastern Cottontails everywhere – in my backyard, in the park, on the side of the road. But little did I know that a second species of rabbit lived in my midst, in complete secrecy, and remained unbeknownst to me until just a couple years ago.

James and I decided to visit local birding site Mason Farm very early one morning in June, and as we traveled up the sun-drenched corridor, I spied a small dark rabbit in our path. Assuming cottontail, I put my binoculars up to my eyes and noticed an all-together different creature, with a stubby bulldog-esque muzzle and short, rounded ears. I’d heard these guys lived at Mason Farm, but I refused to believe it until I saw one. I called out to James – “Marsh Rabbit!” and he snapped the picture you see below.

Marsh Rabbit - Mason Farm, NC; 06/14/2010

We tried to get closer for a better shot, for as you can see the sun shone in our faces. However, just a couple steps closer and the rabbit bolted for a nearby canal. We searched for it, but the Marsh Rabbit had disappeared – apparently they’re not called Marsh Rabbits for nothing, and he’d jumped right into the water-filled canal and swum away. It’s one of the coolest sightings I’ve ever had, and a pretty good one – Mason Farm lies right on the western terminus of the Marsh Rabbit’s range, and is about as far inland as you can possibly find these guys. It’s not the first time I’ve had a surprise mammal sighting like this, and by all accounts it won’t be the last.

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.

Species Spotlight #6: Black Racer

Here in North Carolina, we’ve got two common species of black snake. One is the Black Rat Snake, like the one I found at the Ellerbe Creek mudflats earlier this year. The other, however, is the smaller, thinner, and lither Black Racer.

When I first started out, I really thought it was impossible to separate these species in the field, but like parsing out peeps and sparrows, all it takes is experience. Now, after having found several individuals of each species, it’s really easy for me to tell which species I’ve got. Among other things, they’ve got totally different head shapes – the Black Racer has a more compact and shovel-like head than the traditionally snake-looking rat snake. Additionally, on a rat snake, even a dark one, you can see darker black stripes that run along its body, where a racer will look totally onyx. And finally, if you manage to flush them, there’s no mistaking. A Black Rat Snake will slither slowly into the undergrowth, but a Black Racer, like its name suggests, will suddenly bolt in a straight line until it’s out of sight.

Black Racer - Durham, NC; 03/22/2011

I found this Black Racer along the old railroad grade that crosses Stagecoach Road in Durham. I wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn't flushed, making a bee-line through the forest and prompting me to give a rather ill-advised chase through the thorns and briers that riddled the forest floor. Eventually though, he stopped and stared at me as if the prickly bush between us meant he was totally invisible to me. I didn’t want to bother him, and as soon as I got my shot, I let him lie peacefully in the forest. A very cool snake, and one I can’t see often enough!

Species Spotlight #5: Gray Fox

Remember back when I first the Species Spotlights with that friendly Nutria, I mentioned it was only the second best mammal lifer I got that day at Lake Mattamuskeet? Well that’s because this was the first best.

Originally our Christmas Bird Count group was supposed to drive the muddy road out to the lake and scope what we could see from there. However, just as we noticed a nice Cooper’s Hawk and a couple of overwintering Common Gallinules (as they’re now called), a National Wildlife Refuge employee descended upon us like we’d done something wrong. And apparently we had. The idea was that we got permission from Lake Mattamuskeet to count the birds in the afternoon, but it seems the only people actually allowed permission to drive the road were the hunters that were killing (not watching) the birds earlier in the morning. While I realize that yes, waterfowl hunters do provide the bulk of the funding that keep the NWRs afloat in North Carolina, does that really mean that individuals meaning no harm to the wildlife in question should be denied access to them? In any case, we were back at square one.

We drove back along the wildlife road until we reached the entrance, at which point we were graciously granted access to a small trail leading to a photography blind along the lake. Not that it was fruitless or anything – the trail led us to a couple of female Baltimore Orioles, a nice Winter Wren, and close-up looks at a Blue-headed Vireo, a species I see all too infrequently. As we walked along the nearby boardwalk, the snow crunching underfoot made noises that sounded like gunshots – you’d think that’d deter the wildlife around here, but perhaps they’re used to it. In any case, as we left the boardwalk and headed once again towards the lake, we found this guy. And boy was he worth it.

He has no idea that at this moment, he's the coolest animal in the world to me.

A Gray Fox. I spotted him first from the path as he sat in the open wildlife drive, with thick bushes along the canal between us. As he returned to eating some long-dead or recently killed prey, I noticed he seemed bigger than I thought he would. Perhaps he’d found Lake Mattamuskeet to have good eatin’ in the wake of the hunters, or perhaps his winter coat just made him seem fuller. As a kid, animals like this seemed off-limits to me, something I should never see because Gray Foxes don’t really show up in suburban neighborhoods, do they?

That's the great thing about birding, perhaps the part I like most about it. Yes, you get to see amazing birds, but just being in the field around all this nature means you get to experience it in ways not many other people can, find mammals and reptiles and amphibians that ordinarily you wouldn't even notice. Sometimes, it's all about the birds, but other times... well, it's all about Gray Foxes.

Species Spotlight #4: Northern Cricket Frog

Starting in early spring in the Piedmont, if you go walking through the woods you may find a small puddle or maybe a ditch with some water in it, and suddenly all around you’ll also find a multitude of small frogs fleeing from your footsteps. These are Northern Cricket Frogs, perhaps the most common amphibian in this part of the state.

Trying his best to hide, but it's not gonna work!

Our Northern Cricket Frogs come in two main color morphs – one is the totally brown one seen above, but the other is a more common greenish one, with other frogs spanning a gradient between these two. These are the frogs that you can hear calling all around you in the woods, their constant kik-kik-kik becoming a familiar background noise, and they’ll inhabit any patch of standing water that can be found.

It's tough trying to photograph these guys by flashlight!

I found these guys while on a walk to the heron rookery that’s formed behind the Glennstone subdivision in northern Durham. I was supposed to be looking for American Woodcocks, but because the clear-cut prairie that existed when the subdivision was first built has given way to short, early succession pines, the woodcocks can’t be found much anymore – I’ve only ever recorded a single individual there. 

In any case, the Northern Cricket Frogs made it a fun night. The brown morph one I found near a rocky stream, but the green one was calling with a dozen other individuals from a water filled ditch. I assume they’d bred there the first chance they got, as little cricket frog tadpoles were swimming all around. Apparently the species is declining over the northern part of its range, but don’t tell the frogs down here – they seem to be doing just fine on their own!

Species Spotlight #3: Ground Skink

A couple of months ago, in late April, a bunch of birders made the overnight decision to travel the hour and a half to visit North Carolina’s remarkable first record of Cassin’s Sparrow. And we weren’t disappointed – Ali, Nate, Matt, and I watched the bird skylark from a small bush in the middle of an overgrown field, completely oblivious to the stream of onlookers pointing spotting scopes in its direction.

Scotland County, where the bird was found, is pretty interesting. It’s full of sand and pines, and that means a pretty unique group of animals lives there. Ali, being a herper, kept on turning over logs and fallen bark while we were off looking for the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, hoping for a snake or two. Oh, wait, I didn’t mention that an ABA Code 3 Fork-tailed Flycatcher was seen next to the Cassin’s Sparrow not ten minutes before we’d arrived and never seen again?! I've decided that the Patagonia picnic table effect sucks ass. Anyway, after we gave up our search and had enjoyed our views of the wayward sparrow, we decided to check out the nearby Red-cockaded Woodpecker colony, where Ali upended a bit of bark, and found this little guy.

Definitely a good hiding place, keep it up!

He’s a little Ground Skink, a relatively common little lizard that can be found throughout the state, although you kind of have to be looking for them. I often find them scurrying off into the leaf litter or burrowing themselves right into the soil, but this is the first time one has decided stick around. Apparently, this guy thought a couple pieces of pine straw constituted a hiding spot! Ali, as herpers often do with a touch of wanton disregard for their own safety, picked up the little guy so we could all get a better look.

Apparently Ali's hand makes lizards feel right at home.

You can really see how well these guys are evolved for their particular lifestyle – they’re very elongated, and their legs are extremely small because when you burrow like these guys do, spare limbs just get in the way. And check out those scales – most skinks are unique among the lizards in that their scales overlap in such a way as to create a smooth, laminar surface, and the Ground Skinks really exemplify that. It’s an awesome little lizard, anyway, and one that I rarely get to see close up like this!

Species Spotlight #2: Black Rat Snake

Well, it’s that time of year again. Hurricane Irene only raised the Falls Lake water level a half inch, and already it’s below that again, which means the mudflats are intact and expanding. Any birder worth his salt is going to be checking these mudflats as often as possible, something I’m very familiar with, as it’s exactly what I did last year. On the way to the flats one day, I discovered this enormous Black Rat Snake sunning himself on the gravel road next to the railroad tracks.

He must've been over five feet long!

As you can see, he was all stretched out along the gravel, and didn’t really mind me taking a couple pictures. He just sat there as I kneeled down beside him to take a couple of macro shot, culminating in this nice one with his tongue flicking out. Lucky he wasn’t an ornery fellow, or he could have easily struck at me, but I guess he was happy enough that I wasn’t manhandling him or anything.

You can't get much closer than this!

After hiking down to the mudflats and back, I crossed the gravel road again and the snake was gone. Looks like he got all the sun he needed, but even so he was a really fantastic snake, and it was so cool to get up-close and personal with this awesome animal!