Herping Trip - Eddy county,
NM (May 27, 2002)
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I met up with Chris and Ian (ChrisNM and ian) from Alamogordo, NM the night
before in Carlsbad, NM. We crashed at my house and went to quite a
few places today. We started buying checking out a place where I have
found numerous DOR hognose snakes, but didn't have any luck. Then we
decided to go towards Sitting Bull Falls. The road to Sitting Bull
Falls has nice habitat for numerous herps. There is a little pond on
the way and we stopped there to herp.
There were TONS of turtles there. We spotted one close by and jumped
in and grabbed it. It turned out to be a Western river cooter.
They are protected by the state and found in New Mexico ONLY in Eddy county.
This pond had lots of them.
Belly shot of the same turtle:
A very pretty turtle. We knew that the other aquatic turtle species
in NM were in this pond as well, so we jumped in and caught another turtle.
This time it was the red-eared slider. The markings were very
distinct and not obscured by black like on a lot of specimens.
A belly shot:
We ended up seeing a good sized spiny softshell turtle lurking at the bottom,
but could not get any pics of it. We walked along the pond towards
a cliff nearby. Tons of Rio Grande leopard frogs jumping in the water
as we walked. We climbed up a little section of the cliff and stumbled
upon this:
Hard to tell from the photo above, but this is a better picture:
A ringtail cat that had been injured somehow. Coyote? Mountain
lion? Bobcat? I have no clue, but the thing was barely clinging
to life. We decided to not let it suffer (it was CLEARLY not going
to survive much longer) and smashed it's head....it was dead. Sad thing
to have to do, but I believe it was the best thing.
After leaving the pond, we headed towards Dark Canyon road. I have
found hognose snakes here as well. On the way, we had fun chasing lizards
on and off the road. Chris or Ian caught this little sideblotch lizard
(collared lizard food):
We also spotted this gravid collared lizard basking in the middle of the
road.
It stayed on the road until we pulled the truck over, got out, and got within
a few feet. Then she took off, but was quickly captured after that.
Very beautiful oranges on her indicating she was gravid.
On our way back to Carlsbad, we saw a DOR snake.....stop, turn around, get
out...and what do we find? A hognose. This is what we were looking
for and we were too late. No pics of this animal as it was flat, but
it had been run over earlier in the day. On the way back to Artesia,
we drove through a lightly travelled road and stopped and chased some more
collared lizards and found this very colorful (and fiesty) male:
We also found a few rocks to flip and under one, Ian found this small ground
snake:
And under another rock there was this little guy:
head shot:
A Texas longnose snake. These are one of the most common snakes I find
in New Mexico. But I usually find them while road cruising at night.
After a long and hot day, Chris and Ian headed back to Alamogordo. Although
we didn't find a live hognose, it wasn't a totally bad day. A lot of
different herps from Eddy county made it interesting....
