Panhandle, Florida

March, 2005

I convinced my roommate Max and my younger brother Dave to drive to Florida with me for spring break. I wanted to herp, they wanted to hit the beach but we all agreed on avoiding the "spring break hot spots" so it worked out.

We met up with Sean and the guys from Kentucky for the first few days and had a great time. Sean was an amazing host and the Kentucky gang provided the humor and taught me some stuff in the process. We split up with them after Mon and just did some stuff on our own, as well as hit the beach here and there.

Pretty much everything we saw was a lifer for me so I was pretty excited about some of the more common species. Unfortunately, a bunch of my targets did elude us, but that gave me a reason to go back again... Many of the pictures did not turn out as I would have hoped.  A vaulable lesson was learned on this trip - always bring enough memory!

We started out finding this great (I think so at least) corn in some carpet.



From here things quickly picked up.

A Eastern Mud Turtle found crossing the road.



Next we flipped this good looking Slimy Salamander, but I messed up all the photos I took of it...


And now for the Nerodia fest... I really enjoyed catching these smelly, common snakes.




Will also found this great Grey Rat basking on the rocks.




Here is Will with his big catch and Sean pulling out a big brown.




Narrowmouth Toad


Pine Woods Tree Frog


A little Ribbon snake


Scarlet King


A nice little Tantilla


A rough earth snake


We had a racer bonanza to finish the day out.


The next day we spent all morning flipping tin in southern Georgia and nothern Florida without seeing anything. Discouraged we decided to try what worked the day before and set out for some more Nerodia.

On the way in Max found his first snake... I had been describing to him what type of trees are best to look for when searching for corns, and the appropriate situation to find them in.  Granted, this method has never worked for me before, but I was explaining it as best I could anyway.  We walked by a particularly nice looking tree off the beaten path, and I told Max to check it because I thought it had the right stuff.  Without removing the precious bark, he very carefully and professionally peeked under and promptly told me that it held a snake.  I couldn't believe my eyes when Max removed this very corn snake.


A happy herper






Phil found this little glass lizard on the crawl at dusk in the rocks we were pulling the snakes out of.


We also finally got the banded water snake that had eluded us so far. Greg (KY) swam out 75 yards at dusk, fending off the gators and cottonmouth to make the amazing grab.  While I admit the grab was exceptional, it wasn't really as dangerous as he would have us believe - we did not see a alligator or live cottonmouth the whole trip.  I bet some big ones called that bridge home though...


Here is Will taking the hit. Greg also got it pretty bad as well.  Max's intrepid herping vehicle is chilling in the background.  This trip may have spelled the end of this car.


Not too much turned up the rest of trip. We split from the group to go canoeing and hit the beach. Unfortunately, canoeing fell through as some major rain storms blew through, and the liveries were closed.

 

I managed to turn up some more of the same stuff.

A box from the ANF


A box from an island.  We found this turtle right after running into another herper on a hike.  He reported catching a glimpse of a cottonmouth, but said he really wanted to see a box turtle.  Well we found a nice turtle, but missed out on the trapjaw.


And another Mud Turtle on the island


Sadly somehow I left Florida without seeing a cottonmouth again... I had an amazing time hanging out with some of the best company. Looking back through these pictures, I know I have some more hidden somewhere on another computer.  Hopefully I will remember to add them eventually. 


Jason   

All images and text are property of Jason Folt unless otherwise noted. If you would like to use an image, please contact me and ask first.

© 2006 Last Updated: 2/11/07