Louisiana Field Herping

Lake Martin 10 Jan 09

2009-01-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

Ellen and I ran out to Lake Martin again yesterday for a few hours before the playoffs started (Baltimore at Tennessee, early game and Arizona at Carolina later). The best surprise was a large female Western cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorous leucostoma that Ellen spotted. She put on quite a nice gaping display (below).

As expected, the warmer temperatures had more snakes out basking today, like this adult broad-banded watersnake, Nerodia fasciata confluens below:

Adults weren't the only ones out, as this nice specimen of a juvenile broad-banded would prove:

Again, there were many Northern cricket frogs, Acris crepitans out, showing off their remarkable diversity (below) and a nice-posing spring peeper, Pseudacris crucifer offered over 12 new shots for my collection (2 below cricket frog).

Lake Martin 7 Jan 09

2009-01-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

Ellen and I spent a few hours out at Lake Martin yesterday afternoon. We set out two minnow traps in hopes of capturing an amphiuma or siren, but struck out on both. While we were letting the traps sit, we did some log flipping. The first find was two central newts, Notopthalmus viridescens louisianensis Ellen found under a rotten log; an adult and an eft!

There were lots of Northern cricket frogs, Acris crepitans and bronze frogs, Lithobates clamitans out as well, with fewer numbers of Southern leopard frogs, L. spenocephalus. Bronze frog pictured below.

After some work, Ellen finally got her hands on a bronze frog.....

After more flipping, we ended up with about eight newts in total, including two more efts. At some point, I said out loud "I'm feeling mudsnake...". After a few more logs, Ellen produced a young mudsnake, Farancia abacura from inside a rotten log!!!!!!! HUGE score! By FAR, the best find of the day.......

Atchafalaya Basin 3 Jan 09

2009-01-05T16:49:00.000-08:00

Rob and Chris Dobbs and I went out the Sherburne Complex of the Atchafalaya Basin Saturday night, January 3, 2009. It was Rob's last night of herping before he, his wife Meribeth and best friend Binny the black lab had to head back to Colorado. For me, it was my first herping of 2009. The night was predominated by choruses of spring peepers, Pseudacris crucifer, Cajun chorus frogs, P. fouquettei and Southern leopard frogs, Lithobates spenocephalus. We were able to get several shots of the first two in song, but the leopards proved again to be a formadible challenge.....each time we would near singing males, they would fall silent. Of course, being that they always give song from water, it's hard to approach one while wading through the same pool they're singing from.

Photos below in order of appearence: 1) spring peeper, 2) Cajun chorus frog & 3) Southern leopard frog

Chris in action......