Well, I’m trying to type this blog post from memory because all was lost when I made the transition to the new database and fixed our poorly working wordpress (not that I’ve got it working perfect right now ahhhh!!!!)  So here it goes…

This was my first trip out in the field since I moved to Houston and I spent a few good hours on Google Earth before heading out and decided to herp a few areas at George Bush Park.  I started off by herping along some blackwater trenches where I found a good number of Nerodia fasciata confluens, and even though I’m not a big Nerodia person, it was nice to at least be finding so many herps on my first trip out.

After the trenches, I decided to herp a pond to very little avail, but I did get to take some nice shots of the good ‘ole Red Eared Slider present at just about every pound in the US at this point.  I also saw numerous Rana species as both adults and tadpoles all around the pond.

Finally, I decided to walk back into the woods a little bit and follow some ponds and I hit it huge!  First, I found a small 20’x10’ dried up pond that had three different Western Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus luecostoma) in the same water hole!  I, of course, took the opportunity to take some video and photos of the three beauties before placing them back in their hole and moving on.  Not 50 feet from that hole I found another Cottonmouth, and not another 100’ from there I found my last Cottonmouth!  Awesome odds and I couldn’t have asked for a better outing.

To end the day, I flipped one last rock and happened to turn over another young Broadbanded Water Snake before heading back to the car.  All-in-all a great day and a great outlook onto the many years of herping in Houston to come!

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Totals on the day:

Nerodia fasciata confluens: 13
Nerodia erythrogaster flavigaster: 1 (Lifer!!!)
Agkistrodon piscivorus luecostoma: 5
Rana spp.: Numerous
Red-Eared Sliders: Numerous

Well, I know that I haven’t been keeping up with the Field Blog this spring/summer like I was hoping too but I have an allowable excuse.  Unfortunately I’ve been fighting with WordPress for the past few months and it has been very shakey, not working, and being an all-around pain.  Today, I stayed home sick from work and decided that from bed I had enough energy to at least delete out all of my old databases and wordpress files and start this thing all over again.  Unfortunately, I lost all of my old field posts again and I’m hoping to retrieve most of them and try and recreate the posts in the next few days.  So, stay tuned from here forward for new updates and Live updates from the field via Twitter!  Also, I should have our first Ruddock Reptiles Video up in just a few days!! Lot’s of cool stuff happening including me getting married in just over a week!  Crazy!!!

Well I (Payton) finally got around to editing the photos (quick run through Lightroom® for contrast and vignette boost) from last weekend and thought I’d throw them up.

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It was a relatively mundane trip out to Lick Creek as I got out a little late and it was already warming up for the day.  I did, however, end up running into a nice little surprise!  This is only my second Western Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma) ever, and the first one I’ve ever been able to capture while it was gaping that beautiful white mouth at me!

I walked up on this little guy while I was walking a dried up creek bed and he couldn’t have been calmer.  You’ve got to love the awful reputation they get because of that defensive open mouth display.

Anyways, the rest of the day consisted of a few different species of frog and plenty of Common Ground Skinks.  I’m hoping to get out a few times this week and will hopefully have more photos and video to go along with it.  Enjoy!

            ~Payton