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Jason, what criteria are you using to define a vernal pool? Not asking to be difficult or give a hard time, it's an honest question.

Agreed about the water snakes. I've had the dubious pleasure of free-handing rolling, thrashing and projectile-musking water snakes. The stuff gets everywhere. Plus the biting. Yeesh. The white gunk is uric acid. Like birds, snakes use uric acid to get rid of their nitrogen-based waste rather...

I'd venture to guess that many people are putting the map and compass aside for the GPS on their phone, and maybe in some places folks are losing their signal, becoming disoriented and this is compensation for it?

Yes, that's a juvie rat snake. Very cool!

I would have assumed it to be a buck scrape but like I said I've seen something nearly identical and was told that it was bear. Isn't it possible for this to be a buck scrape? Were there any other deer sign on trees near this scrape?

Welcome!

I've seen sign that was identical to that in the photo; deep, elongated scrapes in the ground and smelled strongly like urine. A friend of mine (who is very experienced with the outdoors) was adamant that it was bear sign, which is possible because we were in a location where bear were known to...

I just removed the hot peppers this past week, and the tomatoes two weeks ago. Still have some mustard greens, spinach, carrots and chard growing, which I will cover. Coincidentally, I'm about to go outside and plant the kale!

I knew it wasn't you because he didn't come up with a turtle in his hand and smiling like the cat who ate the canary.

Maggie, you're lucky! I've always found the photos of them to be stunning. Let me grab my camera, and take me for a walk!

Great pic and great find! I have yet to find a rough green, but next year I plan on spending more time in their habitat (on purpose) :) Regarding snakes that eat crickets, this may be anecdotal, but in the places where I've found Dekay's brown snakes, crickets also seem to abound. I think that...

Hoping we get a good 2 inches more from the Nor'Easter plus the benefit of some rain bands from Joaquin.

Well, help certainly does seem to be on the way. Maybe in a big way. Looks like the potential for 5-6 inches of rain over the next week with the system today and the one coming on Saturday/Sunday.

I saw a few but they all seemed to be dead :D

Behold the Hickory Horned Devil (this one found at Palmyra Cove):

Beautiful indeed! Thank you for sharing!

I've been watching Tuesday night and Wednesday with interest too, seems like the potential for about two inches of rain (which isn't much relative to the drought but it's a good start!)

No mistaking that disposition either. Yeesh. It's surprising how similar they look at that stage (Eastern milk snake below):

My newly hatched neonate from last year (got to watch the egg hatching):

Ack, I blew it. I've only seen neonate racers or adults in the fields, not the intermediate juveniles. I looked them up, and they do look like this. My rationale for calling it a milk snake was 1) the white ground color with the darker red dorsal blotches and 2) that the dorsal blotches don't go...