Weekly Update Archive

Week Ending 04/23/05

Things are really picking up now in the herp arena. I have been out locally collecting and checking things out and even with the little cold fronts we have been getting, snakes are still crawling. My latest adventure was on Monday, April 18. I went up the Colorado River off of highway 35 just South of Bay City in Matagorda county with my ol' buddy Gary Kaiser. Since I was off this day, I decided to go out and sight see and photograph some animals. Some I caught, some I released, but all snakes that were captured will be released back into the wild. We saw many snakes this day. The first snake we came across was a Canebrake Rattlesnake coiled up sunning itself under an oak tree. This was awesome to see as it has been quite a while since I have seen one in the wild. I understand the area in which we were in is thick with them. We only came across this 3.5-4 ft. male that appeared to be in some stage of a shed cycle. This particular snake never moved, never rattled and was totally cool with being photographed. He certainly knew we were there because he was constantly tasting the air. After seeing this jewel we moved on down the river. After we got out of the boat, Gary stepped right over a breeding pair of cottonmouths. He never saw them and I went back to the boat to get my camera and my batteries had already died, so I was not able to get a picture of that. We ended up seeing four cottonmouths, one Eastern Coachwhip, and several different species of water snakes. We had a great time and this was a new adventure for me. This will probably be the last time I go locally field collecting before South Texas and West Texas collecting begins. Next on the list is South Texas and then in the first week in May, my first trip to West Texas to "taste the waters" as they say.

On a side note, I am particularly happy to announce the birth (hatching) of eight healthy possible Het. for Pie-bald Pythons which have just emerged on April 21. I will be posting the ones available for sale complete with close up pics of the dorsal view as well as the underside of the tail shots.

Happy Herping to all!

Wayne Howell
April 23, 2005

Herping the Colorado River
(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

Male Canebrake hanging out under an oak tree

Ground level view

Time to cruise...

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