Michigan Herp Trips

As some of the Michigan herpers can attest to, things really slow down here near the end of May and into June. The hot & humid weather and thick cover yields the usual garter snake, but nothing all that exciting. So as the peak season for herping ends here, I begin to travel around my state and outside of it to see a little greater diversity. One of my goals for the year was to hopefully find my first Five-lined Skink in Michigan, I've seen them pretty much everywhere else except my home state. A trip to my girlfriend's place yielded some interesting habitat...

Five-lined Skink Habitat - Midland County, Michigan

This doesn't look like much, but its home to tons of skinks and gave me the opportunity to find and photograph my first in the Wolverine state.

Five-lined Skink - Eumeces fasciatus

A week or so later, I took a jaunt over to Indiana to look around a little bit. I visited the area with Andrew Hoffman & Todd Pierson the year before, but much earlier on. I arrived to much thicker cover, and much less species diversity. Nonetheless, the area has some really nice habitat. 

Water snakes were a common sight near the edges of the marshes. Several were seen basking just like this one, no more than two feet from the edge of the road.

Northern Water Snake - Nerodia sipedon

 About a week later, I decided to go check out an area that I had never visited. Its always cool to go and see new areas because you never know what you're going to find. 

Wet Prairie - Spotted Turtle Habitat

My first find was when I followed a unique call to this little fella perched on a branch, this is as he was found. 

Cope's Gray Treefrog - Hyla chrysoscelis

Not long after photographing the little treefrog, these silly little things began to show up... 

Spotted Turtle - Clemmys guttata

A few weeks later I headed down to Indiana to meet up with Todd Pierson. Things got off to a great start as we found this surprise warming itself on the road. 

Rough Green Snake - Opheodrys aestivus

We then headed to a good flipping site and turned up quite a few Ringnecks, and this gorgeous snake. 

Eastern Milk Snake - Lampropeltis triangulum

As we were shooting the milk snake, which was EXTREMELY uncooperative, we heard some movement in the bushes nearby. Turned out to be this cool little turtle. 

Eastern Box Turtle - Terrapene carolina

Lots of these were found throughout the day as well... 

Fowler's Toad - Bufo fowleri

After seeing lots of DOR box turtles, and three large DOR rat snakes. I began to worry that we would end up seeing something a lot worse, like a dead Timber. We headed to a real hotspot within the area to look for Timbers & Copperheads, neither of which made an appearance. But I did happen to spot this monster rat snake hiding in some brush. This snake was way bigger than any other rat snake I've seen, five feet or bigger easy. 

Black Rat Snake - Elaphe obsoleta

I also managed this cool little snake on the crawl. This is one of only a handful I've ever seen and Todd's second ever in Indiana. 

Northern Red-bellied Snake - Storeria occipitomaculata

And on our way back to Todd's place, we flipped two of these under the same board, this is a species that's been giving me fits for the past few years.

Blue Racer - Coluber constrictor foxii

 

 

 

While we were walking through the area, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this...I couldn't even get my words out because I was so excited, but I finally managed to yell, "BLUE RACER!" The only reason I was so excited is that this snake is the only live specimen I've ever seen in my home county.

 

 

 

We only were able to manage these quick shots before this snake darted and vanished into the thick vegetation... 

 

 

 

Blue Racer - Coluber constrictor foxii

 

We decided to cruise some roads nearby which run through some great habitat. To our excitement, we found this nice female Blanding's Turtle starting to dig a nest right on the side of the road. 

 

 

 

Blanding's Turtle - Emydoidea blandingii

 

 

 

Dr. Harding with the Blanding's Turtle

 

 

(From left to right) Dr. Jim Harding, Max, & Dave Mifsud

 

Our emotions were running high as we continued to drive through some great habitat. But when Dave stopped his truck and got out with a disheartened look on his face, I knew something was wrong. I got out of my car and walked in front of Dave's truck and saw this...

 

 

 

There is no worse sight than this in the Wolverine state, a DOR Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake. The rattle was cut off very cleanly, which lead us to believe this snake was intentionally killed. A few weeks later, one of my cousins graduated over an early weekend in June, so I spent a few days down in Florida with family. Although it was not a herping trip, I can always find time to herp a little bit even with limited time. My plane landed in Tampa on Friday afternoon and by the evening, my cousin Robbie and I were out poking around Polk County. The trip got off to a great start as we found this little guy crossing the road in the late afternoon, first one I've seen in 3-4 years.

 

 

Dusky Pigmy Rattlesnake - Sistrurus miliarus barbouri

 

 

We headed a little further north to cruise some good decent roads we know of, we found this glass lizard within five minutes of driving the first road we turned onto.

 

 

Eastern Glass Lizard - Ophisaurus ventralis

 

On our way back to our grandparents' place, I spotted this large DOR Yellow Rat on the side of the road. I'm convinced that I'm cursed when it comes to Yellow Rats, all the ones I've seen have been DOR.

 

 

Later that night, some thunderstorms rolled through the area and brought the amphibians out in force. There were tons of these all over my grandparent's backyard.

 

 

Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad - Gastrophryne carolinensis

 

Saturday was filled with both graduation ceremonies and the party, so we had no time to get out. But on Sunday, we headed north to the Osceola National Forest to do a little poking around. We were originally supposed to meet Daniel Dye at his place, but plans changed and he made it up to the forest much later in the evening, so for the majority of the day we were on our own. Daniel graciously gave us a few hints to point of the right direction, and so we headed out and reached the forest around mid-day.

 

We found this abandoned property and decided to poke around a little bit and flip cover close by...

 

We flipped a few of these in the general viscinity...

Southern Black Racer - Coluber constrictor priapus

There were periods of rain throughout the afternoon, but it didn't slow down the herp movement at all. Several cottonmouths were found out and about, we found this one on the road just as the rain was letting up.

Florida Cottonmouth - Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti

Eventually the rain let up and the sun began to shine in the late afternoon. As we came around a bend in the road, we found this beautiful serpent making its way across, a lifer for both of us.

We had traveled to Osceola in hopes of finding a canebrake, but didn't think we'd actually bump into one. We spent a good long while photographing the snake.

Canebrake Rattlesnake - Crotalus horridus atricaudatus

And then we let this awesome snake on its way...

 

Daniel arrived around 7 PM, and we did a little cruising. Turning up a few cottonmouths and water snakes, but nothing more interesting than that. I'd like to give Daniel a huge thanks for giving us a few tips that helped us find our lifer Canebrake.  

I've been working tons of hours each week, so my field time has been extremely limited. But with the few days I have had off, I've managed to get out and find a few interesting things. I headed out to an area earlier this week to see if much of anything was out and about, at least the birds kept my attentions for a little while.

I did manage to spot this water snake out for an afternoon bask, but besides a few garter snakes the area was relatively slow throughout the day.

What has really got my attention as of late is the amount of turtle activity that goes on around this time of year. So I decided to dedicate a little more time to this group since I have somewhat neglected them in the past if you will. Road cruising in the late afternoon and evening has been extremely productive and has yielded some really cool stuff. These have been anywhere and everywhere, this individual was found in the parking lot at the golf course I work at.

Midland Painted Turtle - Chrysemys picta marginata

On a separate evening, I headed out to an area to look for one of my favorite species to be out and about. Not more than a quarter mile down the first road I turned onto, I ran into this.

Blanding's Turtle - Emydoidea blandingii

I wish I could have managed better photos of this turtle, but it wasn't worth disturbing her considering she was digging herself a nest. I spent a few minutes just watching her dig away and actually managed to get some cool video footage of it, I may post it up eventually and put a link on here. Anyways, I let her be and got back in the car. Not more than 200 feet farther up the road, I found this in the middle of the intersection.

Just as the first individual, I did not disturb this turtle because of her digging a nest. But it was cool to see two in such close proximity nesting away, apparently there are records of spotted turtles nesting in the area as well. So I'll be checking the surrounding area for those in the coming weeks. And then yesterday I managed to jump over to southwest Michigan, and managed to cruise this gorgeous little girl up.

Eastern Box Turtle - Terrapene carolina

Thats all for now...