Herping Season opens in Nebraska this week!

Finally! The weather is looking favorable to start some early herping here! The Daytime temperatures have been around 60F and night time in the 40s. This week we are getting the mid 50s to Upper 60s with rain! While very early in the season, the "spring peepers" were all ready singing this time last year. The first bits of green buds appeared today, and the grass in the lawn is showing growth after winter dormancy. I have been seeing moths and mosquitoes for the last two dyas now....looks like spring is finally here!

Pictures this weekend if I find anything worthwhile.

UPDATE!

The frogs and toads started calling last night!

Took my dog for a walk about 0300 and found the first A. tigrinum of the season crossing the street a few blocks from the house! With rain inbound, it appears it is going to be a good week. No more walking the dog at night without a camera...:blob:

The weather and my health finally cooperated. Too bad the caudates did not. Here is some shots of a new site I found using Google Earth and a topographical map I hope will produce some good pictures of a few ambystoma within a few weeks.



Here is the shallow end of an artesian spring fed oxbow pond. Our temperatures are still dipping around freezing at night, but the frogs have been singing for over a week now. I hope a bit of warm weather will get those tigers moving.



And here is a shot of the deeper end. As you can see the edges are pretty soupy, however the water is a bit high due to rain last week.



I did have this rather large wolf spider scare the red out of my hair whilst searching the areas around the pond. (And I have gotten good enough with this camera to take close up that are not fuzzy messes...)


While practicing taking close up shots of stuff in the water, I caught a clam in the mud. There were shells of much larger ones everywhere, and small piles of aquatic vegetation the raccoons had removed to get at the clams.

I know...scant on the herping pictures so far, but I will make up for it with this...
lets play name that call!

(video forthcoming to the herping accounts thread...)

So my question is this? Is this pond the type of thing I should be looking for? It has a pretty high level of green thread algae and a high population of cyclops. Fish are not present in this pond.
Access to it is pretty harsh, which is good, it keeps the idiots out of there. One side is a 75 foot cliff and the other is fenced pasture. The soil is semi-sandy and there is plenty of dead fall and old growth logs on the ground.

I ask as this is my first season of salamander hunting in Nebraska. I have years of experience in California and Pennsylvania, but the Midwest environment is new to me.

I think you meant to post this in the accounts section, not the discussion section?

Yes, my apologies John, I did not realize my mistake.

Thread moved. I'm looking forward to seeing the tiger sals, or whatever else you find when the weather warms up. Looks promising.

Thank you Jen. I apologize for my faux pas- I was pretty excited about the whole thing...

I did some additional field work on this pond (and others) by going to the local pubs and talking with the old timers in the area. In talking with them, my co-workers and other folks that grew up in the area they all mentioned the same thing: Ten to twenty years ago tigers were everywhere in these parts. Yet now a days no one seems to see them. I am not sure if this is because they are older and not out in the brush like when they were younger or if it is a caused by some other issue. So after a few rounds here and there with folks that know this climate better than I, I was able to target specific zones to search. It was a lot of fun as I was cruising the pubs with salamander pictures and asking folks "Have you seen this critter?" I am sure a few folks thought I am a little bit crazy, but that made it all the more entertaining. I have also enlisted the neighborhood kids. Since I work graveyard shift, I asked them to come and get me if they find any while playing outside, much to my daughter's embarrassment...

It was so exciting to be out on my own in the "wilds" again after a few years of poor health keeping me from going out and about.

Any salamander would be an exciting find, but I really hope to find and photograph a breeding population of Ambystoma texanum, Nebraska's rarest and most endangered caudate. I am teaching myself about out local frogs and toads also, as there is a few species I have never seen in the wild before. I am also considering going to the Nebraska Herpetologica Society's monthly meeting today, but I am afraid I may be a bit out of place there, they seem to be mostly "snake people".