Florida Everglades Snake hunt 08 (PIC INTENSIVE)

[Joezilla]

TRIP REPORT BY KEVIN MESSENGER! NOT ME!

sorry so late. Things got away from me.

2008 Florida Keys Trip

Well it is that time of year again, for the 5th year in a row I was escaping the harsh cold of Raleigh, NC and heading down to the only place left (on the east coast) to still go snake hunting – the everglades and Florida Keys. The line up was pretty nice, and with gas prices as low as they have been in 4 years, we were able to afford two vehicles and alleviate cramped back seats. Joe, Nate, and I rode in Joe’s 2003 Subaru Impreza, a very nice all-wheel drive car, a good substitute for a jeep (once gas prices go back up); Mike and Zack rode in Mike’s Bonneville, which has made multiple trips down to the keys and glades since the winter of 2004. Come to think of it, that vehicle is probably the most commonly used for our various South Florida trips. Unlike last year, the moon was essentially perfect. The year before it was completely against us, some of the worst possible phases to deal with as far as rd cruising goes; this year though, we had some of the best possible phases.

For previous Xmas outings here is a link to a previous post:
http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14131

12 Dec 08
Joe (who had gone on the 03, 04, 05, and 07 trips), Nate (05, 06, 07), and I left Raleigh at 11:30am, filled up before leaving; gas in Raleigh was $1.57 at the time.

We met up with Mike Martin (04, 05, 06, and 07) and Zack Millner (1st winter trip) in Ridgeland, SC. After a quick adjustment of gear, we set off.

Joe had gone on campus a few days prior to our trip and got a whole bunch of free Full Throttle energy drinks:

Sir Joseph with Full Throttle (Nate’s pic)

We arrived in the everglades around 2am. We rd cruised once, finding nothing but a DOR rough green in front of our campsite.

That night was a full moon. It was actually the brightest full moon of the year, approximately 33% brighter than any other full moon. The moon was also larger (about 15%) because it was about 25,000 miles closer than previous moons for the year. Here is a picture of the road without any flash, ISO 3200, shutter 25 secs, f/18:

Another, ISO 1600, 30 sec shutter speed, f/13:

After cruising we decided to set up camp, because it was actually warm enough that the mosquitoes were coming out (as opposed to just sleeping under the stars without a tent like normal).

After some drinking and some fire we finally went to sleep around 6:30am.

 

[Joezilla]

13 Dec 08
We woke up around noon, drove down to the south end of the glades to look for crocs, saw three.

As well as some osprey:

Gnarly Nate (Joe’s pic)

Masterful Mike (Joe’s pic)

Whoa

We headed back north, just to find a freshly killed glades racer. Today we were planning on spending the entire day in the glades. Typically on these trips we do a day or two in the glades, then three or so days in the keys, then back to the glades for a night, and then go home. But the 12th was kind of day 0, our “head start” day, so today was actually our first “official” day of the trip.

At some point in the day we were to meet up with Bob Assetto, who we rendezvoused with via this forum.

From here we traveled around looking for the agama site we went to last year. I was really wanting to use my “new” 40D and my sigma 500mm lens. The lens did great (I thought) for the crocs, now I wanted to see if I could get any closer to the lizards. After some meandering we finally found the site. It was a bit cloudy, but walking the area we found a few individuals hanging out.

We got some quick breakfast/ lunch/ dinner at some chicken place (because our CiCi’s was closed down). Bob still hadn’t shown up.

We started cruising, tonight was going to be the worst night of the trip (moon wise). Team A; Joe, Nate, and I, turned up a ribbon, a DOR florida green water, a cottonmouth, and a garter. Car 2 (Mike and Zack) found a garter and a freshly hit DOR diamondback!! A little baby to boot, just like last year… It was killed within 15 mins too.

Bob ended up cruising that night as well; apparently he had seen a 6 ft burm at 6pm. We had driven past Bob a couple of times that night, just didn’t realize it was him. Closer towards the end of the night we helped one of the everglades staff fix a flat tire.

The cottonmouth from the night:

 

[Joezilla]

We camped one more night in the glades.

14 Dec 08
8:30am woke up, broke camp.

(a pic while the vehicles were still clean)

We met up with Bob on the way to Anhinga Trail. We stopped by another road to walk through some habitat that had produced well for us the previous year, and has produced very well for a friend of mine that lives in the keys. Unfortunately all we found a huge diamondback shed skin, and a subadult Florida cottonmouth that I almost stepped on.

After this little romp in the woods we headed over to the very popular (for tourists) Anhinga trail. There next to the board walk was an everglades racer that looked like it had been beaten to death. An always disparaging sight in a national park. We walked the length of the trail, photographing birds and gators as we saw fit:

Green Heron

American alligator

Little Blue Heron

Double crested cormorant catching a walking catfish

After doing that for awhile Nate and I went into the gift store to look for knit-knacks, books, shirts, what have you. Inside they had a little rubber subadult coral snake, about 14 inches or so. We purchased it with the hopes of using it on the other road cruising team later in the trip. While we were in there a middle aged man came in and started looking through one of the ID guides. He pointed to a page and said “I think this was it, wait a minute, those colors aren’t exactly right.” I asked him what the snake looked like. He said it was red, yellow, and black. Of course I was thinking scarlet king just off the bat but asked him if the red and the yellow touched, he said it did. Just to verify I showed him one of the little rubber coral snakes and asked him if it essentially looked like this. He said it looked exactly like that, about the same size as well. So I asked how long ago this was; “about 5 mins, right there on the end of the Gumbo Limbo trail.” “Could you show me where?”

We headed to the trail, starting from the end. He walked me to the exact spot, said it was just crawling across the path and went into the leaf litter. I carefully poked around but nothing turned up. Oh well, still a cool observation, it was overcast, looked like it could rain any minute, and was in the middle of the day (12:45pm).

 

[Joezilla]

1:10pm left the glades with Bob in tow (so now our little group was 3 vehicles, 6 people). We stopped by my favorite little restaurant in the northern keys to get some traditional hogfish!!

We were running a little late. We had planned to stop by Mogi’s house, but if we wanted to make it to the southern keys by sunset we had to leave immediately. We told Bob to go on ahead, because he had to square away a hotel on Big Pine. I called Moses, who is another forum member that wanted to rendezvous with us, I told him we were running late and what the game plan was for the night. We were dividing ourselves onto various keys to prevent crowding and increase chances. Mike and Zack took one key, a fairly large one, so I sent Bob and Moses to cruise the same key. Joe, Nate, and I took a different key. The same location where we had found a diamondback back on 17 Dec 05.

As we drove south we hit spots of rain. Apparently from the moment Mike and Zack hit their destination it was drizzling/raining nonstop. Joe, Nate, and I turned up a red mangrove water with some black flecks, followed by a freshly hit rosy rat baby (hit by a car that passed us). A few minutes later we found a normal phase young-of-year mangrove water. Then we cruised for awhile without finding anything. We called up Mike to see how they were doing – zilch. That is when he told me about the rain the whole time. We headed to another key, one that previously had never produced anything at night, even though there is no reason why it shouldn’t. We went up and down that a few times before running into Bob and Moses. They had found a mangrove water as well, back on the same key that Mike was cruising. This was the first time I got to meet Moses in person, we chatted for a little bit. Earlier I had mentioned to Bob that mangroves and rosy’s were essentially guarantees on these keys and that 90% of what you find is going to be one of those two species. Bob thought this was ridiculous to guarantee a rosy. As both vehicles were pulled over and I was standing outside Bob’s Cherokee, talking to him, I looked up in the head lights and said “is that a snake up there?” At the far end of the lights there was a little sub-adult rosy rat stretched across the road; our first nocturnal snake on this road. We grabbed it to photograph tomorrow in the daylight (we had done the same with the normal and red phase mangroves). All animals would be released tomorrow.

So after saying goodbye to Bob and Moses – Bob going back to Big Pine Key, Moses heading down to Key West to stay in a hotel with his parents, we met up with Mike and Zack to find our campsite for the night. The awesome campsite we had found from the year before we couldn’t get to anymore, but there was another location nearby so we decided to set up camp there.

Much like at the campsite from last year we walked around trying to spear some food for the night; crabs, shrimp, and fish. I gave Mike my spear, Joe had his own, and they set off to find food. Nate and I photographed the red phase mangrove. Moses really wanted to photograph the animals during the day, I normally photograph whenever I have them, but didn’t have a problem with holding on to them for a few hours. I wasn’t going to deprive him of his photographic request or anything; despite this, I still wanted to get some night time photographs – you never know which you will end up liking more. So Nate and I photographed the mangrove while everyone else went looking for food.

(Nate in the corner)

They came back with some stone crabs, a blue crab, and a few shrimp, but no fish. We put them on ice and planned to eat them tomorrow with some lobster (provided we ended up going snorkeling tomorrow).

 

[Joezilla]

Instead of catching fish with my spear, Mike decided to choke himself:

It was quite a bit cooler in the keys at night than in the glades, mostly due to the availability of a breeze and being surrounded by water, so opted to sleep in my bivy sac. Joe set up the huge tent for everyone else. We had a small fire; Joe broke open his mead and hard cider that he brewed at home, and eventually we all fell asleep. I think I was the first, and I think Mike had a pretty harsh night from drinking too much mead.

Around 4am or so I heard the soft trickle of rain drops on the skin of my bivy sac. The soft rain turned pretty hard and all of a sudden I heard perfuse cussing from someone in the tent. I guess they didn’t set up the rain fly and most of the people inside were too drunk to care, but the rain did rouse Nate. While it was happening I had no idea who it was cussing that much; it was pretty extensive. It wasn’t until the next morning that I found out Nate was spitting all those words.

15 Dec 08
I woke up around 7am:

(campsite and sleeping bag)

Everyone else was still asleep/ passed out. I called Moses to see where he was. He was en route and not far. I told him everyone else was still asleep for the moment and that we could drive a few roads, flip some nearby trash, and that maybe when we were done they would be up.

We drove down a few roads to look for any early morning DORs or AORs. This is usually how and where I see lower Keys Ribbons. We didn’t see a thing. Next we were gonna stop by a quick tin spot, but about that time Nate called. He said he was up but the rest were still sleeping. I told him we’d swing by and pick him up. When we arrived, everyone else was stumbling out of the tent as well.

Bob showed up as well. He had found a box turtle on the way over. We took the opportunity to photograph the turtle and some of the mangroves from the night before in the daylight:

Normal phase N. clarkii

 

[Joezilla]

Red phase:

From here we went to release the snakes and turtle, then go flip some trash. The trash site turned up a racer, but it eluded capture.

From here we traveled to Blue Hole on Big Pine. A quick walk around the park revealed a gator, a bark anole, several brown anoles, a few green iguanas, and an ashy gecko (Sphaerodactylus elegans).

 

[Joezilla]

Next we went to the ringneck/oolitica trash site. Here we found 3 racers and a mating pair of Florida box turtles.

After that we got lunch at a new pizza joint; 2 large pizzas with 2 toppings for $20. It worked out pretty well. Came down to roughly $3 per person for two slices of pizza. Not too bad.

 

[Joezilla]

Next we decided to walk the habitat where we had seen all the Sphaerodactylus in the dead palm fronds during the previous year. Almost immediately we turned up racer. Searching habitat produced a narrowmouth, a yellow scorpion, a centipede, and an empty FL Box turtle shell.

Fingers for scale:

Mike came across a newborn box turtle. We spent a good 15 min trying to photograph the fearless guy.

 

[Joezilla]

We continued walking habitat for a good hour and a half or so. Bob ran into a Keys native who said he has never seen a diamondback in the Keys, but of course he has never looked for one. We were walking in the refuge and were on the border with private property. Several of us had camo pants on. Well, this Keys native was in his room, smoking; he looked out the window and saw a bunch of guys walking around in the woods wearing camo and thought we were the police, or the army, or border patrol and started freaking out. I thought the idea was kind of funny.

After we were satisfied with our efforts at this place we hit up the iguana park. It always produces iguanas and usually has a strong population of bark anoles. It was getting late in the afternoon though. Only one iguana was still up. We saw a few bark anoles. Here is one I photographed with my Sigma lens that was near the top of one of the trees:

Before cruising we wanted to photograph the rosy from the night before so we could go ahead and release it as well:

After this we decided to split up and start cruising. Given the fact that Mike and Zack didn’t find a single snake the night before, they opted to cruise a different road. Joe and Nate took one vehicle, I paired up with Moses, and Bob was yet another vehicle. The 3 of us cruised the longest road.

All in all the night was pretty good. We found 13 rosy rats and one mangrove water.

That night we camped back in our original campsite (kind of). We were in the same general area, just a few hundred feet from our original location. Since I was essentially camping in just my sleeping bag, I camped away from the group on top of a hill that had a very pleasant breeze.

 

[Joezilla]

16 Dec 08
Woke up around 8am. Originally we were going to go snorkeling for lobster today, and do some more Keys hunting, but the majority of the crew wanted to hit the glades. One comment was “quantity over quality” – granted the glades do produce more numbers, and generally speaking, more diversity. Some of us have been allured to the Keys for the off chance of finding the lesser common species. Basically road cruising in the Keys produces nothing but 2 species; mangrove waters and rosy rats.

So plans had been changed. Now the goal today was to make our way north to the glades, stopping here and there for various reasons. First thing was first, we had to release the rosies from the night before. We took a few trophy shots prior though:

Joe

Bob

Mike

One of the nicer looking individuals:

Bob treated us to lunch on Big Pine Key, it was a really nice meal; definitely a place to visit again. As we walked out of the restaurant someone noticed a bunch of iguanas in a nearby tree. One male with about 4 females.

We headed north, stopping at the day gecko site to photograph those guys. It had drizzled a little bit and only one gecko was “out.”

Our next stop was at Mogi’s house. Mogi is like an adopted grandma. She always welcomes us in, offers us some food and beer usually, and more often than not gives us a free place to stay for the night. I stop by to see her each time I come down, ever since December of 2005 when I met her for the first time.

We sat on the beach for a little bit, had some rum and coconuts. Joe was into hacking up coconuts this trip; he had several knives and machetes that he was writing reviews for/on, so whenever he got the chance to cut open a coconut he would. We had a few beers with Mogi and walked around her incredible jungle.

 

[Joezilla]

She asked us our plans for the night. The plan was to cruise the glades for the next few nights before heading home. She said we could see on her beach if we wanted to. It would save us a camping fee, so I told her we would probably take her up on the offer.

The night in the everglades was pretty spectacular. One of the first snakes we found was a hybrid mangrove/ florida water:

Some of the other snakes for the night:

(Joe’s photo)

The moon coming up over the horizon:

We found a dusky pigmy, our first glades pigmy (alive – we have seen DORs before):

 

[Joezilla]

And a corn:

After the night was over we headed back down to Mogi’s place to spend the night.

Joe and I opted to sleep on the dock. Temps were great, a nice breeze was coming off the ocean. Mike went for the hammock, and Nate and Zack decided to sleep on the lawn.

17 Dec 08
We woke up around 8am. It was an awesome night, slept great:

Nate and Zack slept in the yard:

And Mike slept in the hammock:

I would have figured the hammock would have been the most uncomfortable, but Mike said it was a pretty good sleep…

Our plan for the day was to spend it exploring the Miami area, looking for trash, or anything else we haven’t done before. Bob told us about a road that ran parallel to the toll sound road. We explored this area for awhile, we really wanted to find a “Dekert’s” ratsnake, and Bob mentioned that they used to be in this area.

We found a dead N. fasciata in this pond that we fished out:

Joe playing around with his new Subaru:

 

[KuRUpTD]

Joe ... those are just some absolutely amazing pics ... WOW

That had to be an awesome outing ... thank you for sharing

 

[Joezilla]

This shot resulted in me getting covered in mud:

After leaving the area and heading back north to the glades we saw a huge DOR on the side of the road. At first it looked like a fake snake because it was so big. We doubled back to inspect it:

About a 4 ft DOR burm. This was pretty unfortunate, not the fact that it was dead of course, but the fact that we were only 8 miles from the Keys…

That night was the best night in the glades.

What appears to be a pure mangrove water:

A beautiful corn:

 

[Joezilla]

Later in the evening, while we were sitting around talking, Joe was walking along the edge where the grass came in contact with the dense vegetation. All of a sudden we hear him yell “Coral!” We all take off running. He was across the parking lot and it took us a good 5 to 6 seconds, unfortunately by this time the snake was gone. We were in the park of course, so it’s not like we were allowed to grab the snake. We searched the nearby area, but it had disappeared into the brush. It was a lifer for Joe, so he was pretty excited. Mike and Nate got their lifer coral in the glades back in December of 2006. I got my lifer corals in October of 2004 (4 of them in 3 days). Joe said he was walking along the edge and it was coming from the parking lot, through the grass, and heading into the woods. Just cruising around, going about its own business. A very cool way to find a snake. It would have been nice to get a picture, but oh well.

That night we stayed in the glades.

18 Dec 08
Our last complete day in the glades. Pete had called me the night before and told me that a friend of his with the park service, fire crew, was conducting a controlled burn scheduled for this morning. Pete has found several diamondbacks crossing the road along this one section that was scheduled to get burned, so we thought it was reasonable to watch the burn and see if we find any snakes fleeing the area. Some of the fire crew had seen two diamondbacks fleeing a burn just two days prior. Wade has found several diamondbacks fleeing burns over his many years of diamondback research as well.

We met up with the fire crew to determine what time the burn was going to take place. We parked our cars and waited for the show to begin. One other spectator was standing there. I forget how the conversation began, but somehow we were in a dialogue. He told me that he was one of the scout masters at the camp here in the glades. We told him we were here hoping to see some diamondbacks fleeing the scene and he talked about how diamondbacks were fairly common. He mentioned one occasion when a scout went to take a piss and ended up pissing on a coiled six footer. Scared the kid pretty bad. I would have given anything to have a scout camp where I could have stumbled across a diamondback by accident! It would have made scouting A LOT better! Talking with the gentleman some more he mentioned that we would be allowed to camp at the scout camp if the glades camping were full or not available. He even mentioned we would be able to rent out a building with a kitchen! And because I am an Eagle Scout I would get a 50% discount.

No snakes were found fleeing the burn, just a few frogs (mostly Cuban tree frogs) and a swarm of grasshoppers.

 

[Joezilla]

We met up with Moses that night. He had gone back to spend a few days with his parents before meeting up with us again. We were able to find a few more lifers for Moses, including a malnourished Florida scarlet, an everglades rat, and a Kinosternon subrubrum steindachneri.

 

[Joezilla]

We spent one last night the glades. Moses camped out with us that night.

It was once again a terrific trip. I have yet to have a “bad one.” Especially when you consider the alternatives; staying in Raleigh, freezing my @$$ off, not herping, not enjoying 80º weather in the middle of December. Even if we only found a few herps a day, it is still a fun time with friends.

19 Dec 08
Noon: we packed up and left town. It was 86º when we left. On the 20th of December at noon it was 48º!! Ugh…

Until next year…[/quote]

 

[Squeezymo]

That's awesome! Those are some beautiful corn snakes! Great camerawork too by the way.

 

[Joezilla]

quote="Nshepard"]Here are a few more of by photos of the trip just for the sake of more candy.

Agama agama - South Florida (visited this same population last year).

A. piscivorus - Second night cruise in the glades.

E. guttata - Key Variant Corn snake (Rosey Ratsnake).

Nerodia clarkii compressicauda - Keys locality

Florida Bark mantis - Gonatista grisea [Lower FL Keys]

- Another view of one of our campsites.

E. guttata - Key Variant; hypomelanistic individual.

Our first DOR Burm (out of ~20 live AORs), found outside of the everglades park (UF photo record)

- The art of cruising....

 

[Joezilla]

Kinosternon bauri - Neat little guys.

Nerodia taxispilota - One of our only brown watersnakes of the trip (might be the only one).

E. guttata - From the glades.

Nerodia clarkii compressicauda X N. fasciata - Very strange specimen

- A little fire is good for the long leaf soul...

E. guttata - Not only a Key Variant Corn snake (Rosey Ratsnake), but also a somewhat abstract group shot/herpers in action shot/habitat shot.


Nice wrap up post Kevin. Your Green Heron photo is spectacular![/quote]