Went out to the pines today for a couple of hours on a spur of the moment type thing. I basically hit a gold mine as far as wildlife is concerned. For the first hour of my hike I was basically seeing nothing. However, around mid afternoon I stumbled upon some wet woodlands where i noticed some quick movement along the banks of a vernal pool. At first I thought it was just some frogs jumping in but there was no splashing or squeaking sound like you normally hear. I decided this would be a good spot to sit and eat my lunch and see if anything pops its head up. Within fifteen minutes a 2-3 inch painter popped its head up within about 5 feet of me. From that point a couple more would pop up from time to time. I finished up my lunch and was putting away the trash when I saw another head pop up. This time it was the flat black head of a spotter as its head extended more I could see the orange spots here is a pic(you can see it through the green hue.
From there I looked to my right and saw another spotter this ones shell was clearly visible. He began swimming closer and closer with his head above the water he eventually stopped at a branch were he rested and then went back under. Here are some picks nicest looking male I have every seen, heavily spotted.
in total i saw six adult spotters in one 20*15 pool in about 45 minutes. Five def were males and the sixth was questionable. Unfortunately due to the cloudy day and reflection coming off the pool pics didn't turn out real good. The one above was the only one I could get a full shell picture of.
If this trip wasn't already good enough I saw two bald eagles(1 imm, 1 adult), about 20 hooded mergansers, a pair of common mergansers, 1 mute swan. Also to cap it off I caught a brief glimpse of a coyote or wild dog running across the dirt road about 50 yards in front of me, it was dusk at this point and ducked off into the woods moving very fast, I didn't pursue it since if it was a wild dog I wanted nothing to do with it. Another weird thing is that twice when I have been to this spot I have seen a black lab. Both times I have seen no humans with him or near him. I guess he is just someones lost pet, strange though. All in all a good day and one that will be real tough to top, but i'm going to try tomorrow.
chris
From there I looked to my right and saw another spotter this ones shell was clearly visible. He began swimming closer and closer with his head above the water he eventually stopped at a branch were he rested and then went back under. Here are some picks nicest looking male I have every seen, heavily spotted.
in total i saw six adult spotters in one 20*15 pool in about 45 minutes. Five def were males and the sixth was questionable. Unfortunately due to the cloudy day and reflection coming off the pool pics didn't turn out real good. The one above was the only one I could get a full shell picture of.
If this trip wasn't already good enough I saw two bald eagles(1 imm, 1 adult), about 20 hooded mergansers, a pair of common mergansers, 1 mute swan. Also to cap it off I caught a brief glimpse of a coyote or wild dog running across the dirt road about 50 yards in front of me, it was dusk at this point and ducked off into the woods moving very fast, I didn't pursue it since if it was a wild dog I wanted nothing to do with it. Another weird thing is that twice when I have been to this spot I have seen a black lab. Both times I have seen no humans with him or near him. I guess he is just someones lost pet, strange though. All in all a good day and one that will be real tough to top, but i'm going to try tomorrow.
chris
