Endangered Toads
The California Black Toad(Bufo exsul) exists only in a tiny chain of natural springs in Eastern California. They are endemic to this area, and as a founding member of the Eastern Sierra Herpetology Club, it is a privilege to be able to work with the California Department of Fish and Game to protect and maintain the habitat for these animals. Yesterday, we took a trip up there to check on the toads, and see how the breeding season was coming along…
Adults in amplex amid egg strings
Adult pair in amplex(mating)
We observed 4 or 5 pairs of adult toads in amplex, which means the male has mounted the female and breeding has begun, and we also heard several “release” calls, which is a signal that mating has finished and the male is releasing the female. We also saw millions developing egg strings, and even a few tadpoles…
Egg Strings. Each tiny, black dot is a developing tadpole. The empty areas are from recently hatched tadpoles...
2 tiny tadpoles, likely only a day or two old...
After visiting the breeding habitat, we followed the spring system to a location known to be home to several toads to see how they were progressing. We were pleasantly surprised to see a countless number of juvenile toads, likely hatched last year, hopping and swimming around, seemingly everywhere we looked. To say there were thousands would be an understatement…
Juvie Black Toad
Juvie Black Toad
It was a real treat to see so many breeding adults peacefully using the breeding habitat that we, as a club, helped to restore and protect. It was also a real treat to see that the implementation of a seasonal road closure, also initiated by the Eastern Sierra Herpetology Club, led to such a successful amount of breeding last season. We were all smiles and giggles over our short-term successes. Now we can begin long-term documentation and maintenance and hopefully watch this endangered, endemic population of toads thrive in their only native habitat.
Obviously, while out on these trips, we see other reptilian wildlife and even a few insects. So here are a couple of “bonus shots” from the day…
No idea...any guesses on species out there?
Great Basin Fence Lizard--Sceloporus occidentalis longipes
Common Sideblotch--Uta stansburiana
Northern Desert Horned Lizard--Phrynosoma platyrhinos platyrhinos
I did find a very pretty and extremely healthy Mojave Patchnose snake(Salvadora hexalepis mojavensis) on the way up to the habitat, but I didn’t get a picture of it. I got to share it with my friend Rusty who had never seen one before, though, so that’s good enough for me…
Thanks for coming along!
I Love My Backyard
It’s not quite a year since I moved into this new place. By the time we got here in May last year, the flowers and trees had already been too neglected to recover by much. They did OK, but this year, with ready tending, watering, and cleaning, they are blooming like crazy. With that comes the insects…
Yellow Swallowtail
Yellow Swallowtail 2
There is also several acres of empty, rolling scrub land behind the house that usually has birds flitting about. This afternoon, I saw a cute little chipmunk…
Li'l Chipmunk
It’s nice to live in an area that has so many varied wildlife opportunities close at hand.
Thanks for lookin!
Sunflower Sunrise
I went to an area known locally as “Farmer’s Pond”, this morning. In the winter, this entire area is flooded, and provides a lot of waterfowl habitat. In the summer, they drain the water off, and the entire area becomes flooded with wild sunflowers. One of the few places in the area that changes so drastically during the seasons, yet remains incredibly photogenic…
Sunflower Sunrise
Self Portrait
John
Bee
Grasshopper
Wheeler Crest
All in all, it was a really decent morning. Thanks for taking the time to look!
Bishop Creek Canyon
I went camping with my daughter, my girlfriend, and her daughter up in Bishop Creek Canyon over the weekend. It was quite nice to get outta town and get out with a camera in hand…
Looking east
Baby Mountain Gartersnake that Annette spotted--Thamnophis elegans elegans
One of the many species of blue damselfly
Butterfly taking a morning "coffee break"
Mother Nature's Garden
Orange Mallow
Mojave Prickly Pear Blossom
Not sure on an ID for this Damselfly yet...
That’s about it for now. I took a bazillion pictures of the fire last night, too, but I haven’t processed them yet.
Anyhow…I really enjoyed the weekend. I hope you enjoyed seeing the photos!
Dragon Flies
I love dragonflies. They flit about eating insects, and look cool as hell doing it…
Thanks for looking!
Trip to San Francisco
So…anyone that’s been reading knows that I have been in the process of moving. I have been living in a small, 2 bedroom apartment with my daughter and a room-mate for the last 4 years. It wasn’t the best, but we made it work. Not long ago, my girlfriend asked if I was interested in getting a place together with her, and we jumped at the chance. So, me, my daughter, my girlfriend, and her daughter al share a really nice 4 bedroom, 2 bath house. Moving sucks ASS, and I despise the process. But the results are well worth it.
So…as a little bit of a break, my good friend John and his wife took me to San Francisco for a night. It still amazes me how easily my stress melts away with a camera in my hand…
Wild Rose growing in my new front yard
Bueatiful Swallowtail Butterfly
This guy threatened to break my camera if I took his picture. I wished him luck with that...
Awaiting the Bite
Alcatraz
The Rock
Alcatraz Guard Tower
Forbes Island
Seagull you fly across the horizon...
Telegraph Hill from The Embarcadero
The Golden Gate in B&W
Crosstown Traffic
It was a really fun, albeit short-lived trip to the Bay. I had never been there before, so it was a very worthwhile endeavor.
Thanks for coming along!
Backyard Macros
So…I’m in the process of moving out of my tiny-ass apartment, and in to a large house. For the past 4 years, my daughter and I have shared a 2-bedroom apartment with a room mate, which means I have been sleeping on the couch for longer than I care to remember. We are finally moving in to a large 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house with my girlfriend and her daughter. What a fantastic change!
However…this leaves me very little time to go out and shoot. So…backyard “wilderness” will have to suffice…
Western Longnose-Rhinocheilus lecontei
Make A Wish
Looking at the world through a Fly's Eyes
The Nucleus
One more great aspect of our new house…PLENTY of open habitat to explore. I haven’t walked around too much to explore the property in depth, but I know there are about 1,000 acres or so of public land surrounding us. I also know that I received 3 different rattlesnake removal calls from this area last year, and all 3 were very nice Panamint Rattlers. Rarely are removal calls actually for rattlesnakes. Most of the time, they are big gophersnakes, occasionally a kingsnake, and even a few garter snakes. But in this area, they have all been actual rattlers, and that makes me very happy, contrary to what one might think, considering there are 2 young girls running around. But my daughter is well trained in identification, and my girlfriend’s daughter is quickly learning…
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Walk About Town
Just walking through town yesterday morning with my camera and 105mm macro lens…
Some kind of cultivated Rose
A sure sign of summer in the Town Park
Some kind of clingy-tree-vine with pretty flowers
Gathering nectar
Thanks for taking the time to look!
More Flowers…
Spring is definitely in the air. Wildflowers are starting to pop up all over the place! Evening Snow Blanket is covering many a hillside in the early morning, gilia blankets anywhere there is dirt and some moisture, scalebud and tidy tips are popping up in the most unlikely of places… Yes, my friends…spring is here!
Chapparal and a Friend
Great Basin Gilia
Great Basin Gilia cluster
Another type of gilia
Great Basin Gili
Desert Paintbrush
Scalebud Clusters
Single Gilia
Tiny yellow...Gilia? Anyone know what this is?
Scalebud and Tidy Tips hillside
Thanks for coming along!
Gorgeous Day
What a fantastic morning! My buddy John and I took a drive out to the east side of the Tungsten Hills in search of lizards. We didn’t find any lizards but we discovered that the wildflowers had started to bloom…
Daisey
Scalebud
Cherry Blossom
Cherry Blossom
Gilia of some variety
John getting "The Shot"
Mating Turkey Vultures
On the way home, we were gifted with the opportunity to see this pair of Turkey Vultures mating in a tree on the side of the road.
All in all it was a really nice day. Thanks for coming along!
More Random Macros…
Yea…you know…I’ve been spending a lot of time with my wide angle lens and some closeup filters…plodding around town, bothering the bees and butterflies, and stealing the light from the flowers. But I’ve taken so many macro shots over the last 2 weeks, that I simply have not had the time (or the inclination, to be frank…) to share them.
So…here it is. Another “Random” post, only this time…with macros.
Bearded Dragon from the shop
African Hingeback Tortoise from the shop
So there you have it. Just a bunch o’ randomness and photographs from the last couple weeks. Hope you enjoyed them!
More Macros…
Well, like any other new technique I am trying to learn…I am currently shooting a ton of macros. I like the fact that I no longer need to find an interesting subject…I just need an interesting picture. Textures, colors, shades, tones, lines…the tiniest little details become so much more important, and the scope of photography takes on a different feeling.
Anyhow…
Ashes to Ashes
Summer's End
Make a Wish
These butterflies…they actualy let me get within a couple of inches before they got spooked and took off. I’m not sure if it was the temperature, the season, or what could have made them so patient, but they had no problem with me getting down on my belly and inching my lens closer to them for shots. They were cool…
“Shorter of Breath…”
“…and, one day, closer to death.” Pink Floyd is awesome…Anyhow…
Yup…Another year has passed. I “celebrated” my 36th birthday yesterday. I’m officially closer to 40 than I am to 30. I guess it ain’t so bad. I feel good, I still look relatively good with more brown hair than grey, and still more hair on my head than my ears or back. And hell, I’m happy and having a ton of fun just living life. I guess growing up ain’t so bad…
Anyhow…in lieu of any sort of Birthday Celebration, I spent a good portion of the day hiking a rather short but steep trail by myself in the John Muir Wilderness. About 2 miles and about 2,000′ in elevation gain to the first lake…where I stopped…
The First of the Tyee Lakes
I’m fairly certain that this is looking towards the south. I could be wrong as I don’t usually carry a compass on a fairly popular day hike. I suppose it doesn’t really matter much…
Ovipositing Dragonfly
I managed to see this big ol’ dragonfly laying some eggs in the reeds at the edge of the lake. She landed close enough to me that I was able to get a decent shot of her ovipositing…
Small Cascades
On the way back down the trail, I followed the faint sound of trickling water to this tiny little outlet stream, and got what I think is a really decent shot of a tiny little cascade.
South Fork Falls
This is the second try at these falls for me. This is a small feeder stream that flows into the South Fork of Bishop Creek after going over this really nice fall. The last time I shot it with limited filters, and got a decent shot…but this one is better.
Anyhow…that’s how IO spent the ol’ birthday…walking around in the wilderness, disturbing everything around me. Couldn’t have asked for a better day. To top it off, a friend took me out for Sushi and pool in the evening. Great way to end the day!
Thanks for taking the time to read!
Old Shots Re-visited
I got a new monitor. YAY for ME!! It is WAY better than the old piece of shit I was using. Since getting it, I have been able to properly calibrate it, so that I can actually view my images the way everyone else sees them!
See…up until now…when I’ve been processing photos, I have been acutely aware of my monitor’s shortcomings, and “guessing” where the photos needed to be to ook right to other people. Well…them days are over!
I remembered taking a bunch of photos that I never processed because I simply couldn’t get them to look good on the old monitor. SO I have re-visited some of these images, and managed to properly process them. So here they are!
Great Basin Gophersnake
Great Basin Gophersnake
Panamint Rattlesnake
Desert Nightsnake
And a closeup shot of a REALLY creepy Dobson Fly I took last night:
Creepy, creepy face. Must be an alien...
Thanks for taking the time to look!!
Kern Valley
Went for a drive down around the Kern Valley the other day…
Frozen Fall
The water in the North Fork of the Kern River were spectacular. There are ALWAYS rapids on the Mighty Kern, but believe it or not…the flows were perfect for swimming and fishing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared for either one…so I just took some pictures.
While sitting alongside a small pool on a feeder creek higher in elevation than the Kern Valley…we were surprised by the sudden intrusion of a VERY unexpected guest:
This cute little bat fell down out of a nearby tree and struggled his way up and down several logs. He kept jumping into the water, and then climbing back out. I’m not real familiar with bat behavior, but it didn’t appear to enjoy it’s time in the water, and certainly was not what I would consider a “reasonable swimmer”. It was more like flopping and flailing. I helped it get up onto a stick, and moved it back away from the water’s edge, and it just laid there…wet and visibly exhausted. We watched him for about 20 minutes, and then moved on. The reality is…it didn’t look healthy. Something was wrong. I have no idea what was wrong, but…something was. I would not be surprised if it died shortly after we left…
Finally…coming back across the mountains to the Eastern Slope…I couldn’t resist this shot of a HUGE Joshua Tree field. It was very neat, having the mountains with the J-Trees in the distance and the small feeder creek lined with Oak and Aspen in the foreground. So I asked Annette to pull over so I could get the shot…
Desert and Oasis
And that’s about it. I didn’t find any snakes, which was, as I’m sure you assumed, my ultimate goal in the trip. But I got to hang out with my friend Annette in a gorgeous river valley on the Western Slope of my beloved mountains. All in all…no snakes, but…still a wonderful way to spend a Sunday.
Thanks for coming along!
Insect Macros
Anyone that knows me, knows that I am an absolute wuss when it comes to insects. Flying, biting, stinging, crawling, ugly, big, little…I don’t like ‘em. The only ones I like are the ones that trout eat. And I only like those ’cause I like to fly fish. Can’t have one without the other, so I have learned to love damselflies, Dobson’s flies, mayflies, stoneflies, caddis, midges and the like. But everything else is fair game for the fly swatter as far as I’m concerned. But I digress…
Anyone that knows me well, also knows that I can’t pass up a cool photo opportunity if my camera is within easy walking distance. So when I went out onto the porch last night and saw a bunch of really cool looking spiders chilin’ in a web…I had to snap a couple close-ups…
The Underbelly
The Backside
I have no idea what these spiders are, but they were hanging out with 5 or 6 others that looked exactly the same, all in one giant web in the corner, underneath my porch light…like any smart spider would be… Anyone that knows what they are, feel free to let me know via comment!
I also saw this cool beetle-looking thing in the early evening, and my daughter wanted a picture of it, so…I’ll share it…
Cool looking thing...for a bug...
Well…that’s about it. Just a couple cool macro shots of some front porch wildlife. Thanks for looking!
Wildflowers and Landscapes
While walking around yesterday looking for lizards in the high elevation desert, I came across several wonderful wildflowers, and a couple really nice landscapes…
Thanks for taking the time to look!!
Alpine Hike
It was HOT in the desert today. So rather than deal with the triple-digit temperatures, I decided to go for a hike up around 10,000′ in the nice, breezy, mid-70′s. God, I love where I live…
Black and white damselfly
Blue Butterfly
Blue damselfly
Blue damselfly
Alpine clover...I think...
Crimson Columbine
Paintbrush just starting to bloom
Green butterfly
Notch-leaf Phacelia...I think...
Orange butterfly
Scarlet Gilia
White-ish butterfly
Yellow butterfly
As you can see…there were plenty of butterflies and damselflies fitting about. Looks like it’s gonna be a pretty decent wildflower season up there, as well. Should see some serious blooms coming off over the next couple weeks…
Anyhow…thanks for coming along!
Went for a walk today…
Went for a walk around some high desert springs today with the Eastern Sierra Herpetology Club, looking for amphibians and lizards…primarily the California Black Toad or Bufo exuls. We found some adult toads, LOADS of tadpoles, and some recently metamorphosed Pacific Tree Frogs.
Cool storm clouds, wildflowers and cactus blooms everywhere, a gorgeous spring afternoon, and lots of wildlife of the scaly and slimy variety. So sit back, and enjoy the photos!
Spiny lizard enjoying the sun.
Beaver Tail Cactus
California Black Toad...the reason for the trip...
Blue Damselfly
Brown Damselfly
Cholla Cactus
More Cholla
Cholla with a Friend
Cholla Landscape
A flower, a bee, and a beetle. Couldn't ask for much more...
Grey Damselfly
Northern Desert Horned Lizard
Yellow Monkey Flower
Spiny Lizard
Gravid Sideblotch...that means preganant...
Mating pair of Sideblotch lizards
Gravid Spiny Lizard
Recently metamorphosed Pacific Tree Froglet...
Small, male Spiny Lizard in "full bloom"...
A bit of natural history…the California Black Toad is an incredibly endangered species due primarily to the size of it’s habitat. It only occurs in a very small area in Inyo County, California…where I live. Don’t get me wrong…there are many of them within that habitat range, but still…it is a very small habitat. Finding them was a real treat. Getting even one halfway decent shot was not easy…
Thanks for coming along!!
Random Photos
Well…I’ve taken several photos over the last few days, and I don’t really have anywhere to place them, so…Here’s a “Random Photos” post. My gift to you… 
Glossy Snake-Arizona elegans candida
Another Prtty Sidewinder
Thde prettiest young Panamint I've ever seen
GIGANTIC Desert Hair Scorpion
And that’s about it. See? Just some random shots taken over the weekend. Hope you enjoyed!
Panamint Rattler
Went for another cruise last night. It was cool…low to mid 60′s…it was windy…about 35-45mph…and it was lightly and sporadically drizzling. Not good herping conditions, to be honest, but we went out anyhow…just for shits and giggles…just to say we did.
Storms brewing on the Eastern Slope of the Sierra Nevada
We had pretty much given up. Cruised for about an hour and a half, and the temperature was dropping. So we sped up and headed home.
Storms brewing over Death Valley
Coming around a blind corner…there he was…
Gorgeous adult Crotalus stephensi
Very Calm, he was content to let us get some pics and move on
He only gave me a quick, short buzz...just to remind me that, should he choose the option, he could inflict a very serious and very painful bite...at any moment...
We found a dead one in the middle of the road about 45 minutes later, too. Sad…but part of the game.
Saw some other pretty pictures, too…
Wooly Daisey
Cool moth and a Ladybug, hunkering down from the wind and rain
We’re going out again tonight. We’re gonna head further south, and hope for some more conducive weather for finding snakes. You’ll be the first to know if we find anything fun…
Thanks for your faithful viewing!
I need my Blankie…
God, I hate bugs. They creep me right out. Little nasty, viscious critters flying around randomly and aggressively biting and attacking complete strangers for absolutely no reason…vile little devils…
OK…I know that’s not really true, and I am not really so afraid that they make me want to cuddle up with a blankie and suck my thumb..but close. They skeeve me out…give me the creeps…the willies…any other metaphors you can come up with? Because I’m fresh out.
I don’t like insects…but they make excellent photographic subjects!!
Ugly bastard. I think he's trying to control my brain...
This ugly bitch's legs were so long I couldn't keep them in frame! Must be an alien life form...
God I hate bugs…
Thanks for looking!
Field Herping
Finally…I spent some time walking around a field, and driving on paved back roads, looking for reptiles and amphibians…a favorite hobby and past time of mine. Enjoy!
Western Fence Lizard
Not sure...Sagebrush? Fence? Didn't get a good enough look at it...
Cool Spider
Pacific Tree Frog
Pacific Tree Frog
Northern Pacific Rattlesnake
Northern Pacific Rattler cuddled into some tall grass
That’s it for the Field Herping. Thanks for looking!
More Pics from Today
Just wanted to share some more pictures I took today…
Thanks again, for taking the time to look!
