Jefferson
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2012
- Messages
- 194
- Reaction score
- 33
- Points
- 28
- Location
- Southwest Missouri
- Country
- United States
Well, the title says it all. On April 8th, I went to bed thinking that I would be up and headed for the Heart of Dixie early the next morning, but my parents' vigilance on the weather coupled with a line of strong thunderstorms that would make its way across Indiana and Ohio the next morning forced us to leave shortly after midnight. After getting almost no sleep on the drive down and getting a few sweet teas on the way, we hit our first spot just after lunchtime on the 9th in Northeast Alabama.
The rugged oak-hickory terrain gave me the best pictures I have of Five-Lined Skinks and my first clear pictures of Northern Slimy Salamanders. After a visit to UAH (which was the trip's official rationale), I ventured to a nearby nature park tucked back into the Madison County hills. Despite the habitat, which looked ideal for Timber Rattlesnakes and Copperheads, I found only another Slimy, but at least it was a new county for me. Speaking of new counties, it annoys me when I see an unrecorded county on the herp atlas, and our motel was directly on the Tennessee-Alabama line on account of our dog's presence. Thus, I figured that I could get Giles County, TN pretty easily. Before I did that, though, I'd have to get dinner at a little rest stop on US 431 with a sign on top that reads, "Magic Mile."
While getting a chicken-fried something or other, I asked the attendant, "Why do you call it the Magic Mile?" She responded, "Because it's the luckiest mile in Tennessee." I said, "Okay, but why is it the luckiest?" She asked me if I was from up north. I said I was. "Well, we stopped Sherman's March for about an hour here I reckon," she replied. What's funnier is that Sherman was never even in that part of Tennessee; he was over by Chattanooga pushing south to Atlanta. Yep, I was down south.
Giles County didn't give up without a fight, and it took me an hour and a half of road cruising through cow pastures and fence rows before I finally spotted a Snapping Turtle sticking its head up in a cattle pond only about 200 yds from the county line.
The next morning, after some bar-be-que and the purchase of a rake, we met up with a fellow herper, Bethany Avilla, to go hit the Bankhead National Forest. The strangest occurrence of the trip happened at our meeting spot, where I noticed that she takes notes with the recycled cardboard pens that were handed out at the 2013 Envirothon. So do I.
The first spot in the Fall Line Hills of Northwest Alabama was supposed to be a tin site, but we started out on the wrong trail back into the pines. I'm glad that we did, however, because a Broad-Headed Skink (lifer), and a few Spotted Salamander larvae were right there to greet us in the loblolly pines, although the first was a bear to try to photograph. Upon heading back to the actual tin site, we met up with a group of at least 20 herpers under the command of a man by the name of Colonel Iwo. I'm only joking of course. He wasn't a Colonel, but with that many herpers, he could have taken Little Round Top if only he got a battle flag! The first find at the ACO site was a familiar sighting to me--a Devil Scorpion. These little scorpions can pack a punch that will give you the most intense pain of your life for twenty or thirty minutes, but, observed under a board with a flipped rake, they're harmless.
Other finds at the ACO site by myself and the group included Green Anoles, Five-Lined Skinks, Fence Lizards, Ringneck Snakes, and my first new salamander of the trip, the Mississippi Slimy Salamander. We found five at the site all told, and I photographed the two most profusely brassy-white speckled specimens before we departed bereft of a Copperhead or a Timber Rattler.
On the way to the next site, Bethany and my family got lost looking for the Sipsey Wilderness, which turned out to play into our hand, as we just headed for our intended dusk Green Sally spot early. The shores of a small lake didn't turn up any Cottonmouths, but I did manage to throw out my back while trying to flip a large rock with my defective rake. The woods near the lake gave us yet another Mississippi Slimy Salamander before we commenced to hike the trail that went up around the lake and along sandstone bluffs that now gushed with water in some areas owing to the previous night's rain. The habitat was some of the coolest that I have ever ventured into, almost rivaling the Smokies, Nantahalas, or Southwest Virginia. Along the trail, Bethany bagged a beautiful Long-tailed that had white speckling on the sides and almost looked like a Three-Lined hybrid, I found a tiny Northern Zigzag, got a lifer Northern Cricket Frog hopping around on the mountainside, and saw a Wormsnake and a few Northern Slimies before dusk ensued.
After dusk, we found a Fowler's Toad, a few more Mississippi Slimy Sallies, and two Greens. The Green Salamanders were amazingly breathtaking and a thrill a minute to see in person after all these years of searching, but I couldn't get any photos or clear video. After ten or fifteen seconds, when I'd get the camera, the Greens would retreat back into the rock and leave only their tails exposed, leaving me only blurry footage as proof of my best Alabama herp. At one point, my Dad had to hold me up as I attempted in vain to tape a Green Salamander in a crevice about nine feet off the base of the cliff. However, I'll always remember the Green Salamanders in my "mind's eye," as Shakespeare would call it. John Muir didn't have a flickr or pictures of hardly anything he observed, and he was still a heck of a naturalist. Anyway, we departed and parted ways with Bethany, headed to our motel, and went to bed.
The next morning, we figured that we could be back home in Michigan about nine or ten p.m., but construction crews from Nashville to Indianapolis had different plans. A huge logjam north of Nashville forced us off the highway and onto an alternate route, where we got a Ring-necked snake at a roadside stop in Allen County, KY and saw Lincoln's birthplace farther up the road. Noble, our dog, became very excited around this location (we have a family superstition that our dog is Abe Lincoln). By the time we got around Louisville and into Indiana, it was already seven, and we didn't get to our Indiana spot, which gave us a Slimy and a few Red-backed Salamanders, until eight. That wrapped things up, or so we thought. On the long drive home, we began finding ticks on ourselves and in the car. This meant that when we got home, at 3:45 am, we had to give our dog a bath in town. Think you've done something strange in pursuit of herpetology? You haven't seen anything until you're so tired that you're slap-happy while giving your dog a public spongebath at four am!
So, that's that. Seven lifers, two new salamanders, seven new counties, two new states, and two unvouchered counties filled in. Thanks again, Bethany! I promise you'll get more lifers that me in the Smokies!
The rugged oak-hickory terrain gave me the best pictures I have of Five-Lined Skinks and my first clear pictures of Northern Slimy Salamanders. After a visit to UAH (which was the trip's official rationale), I ventured to a nearby nature park tucked back into the Madison County hills. Despite the habitat, which looked ideal for Timber Rattlesnakes and Copperheads, I found only another Slimy, but at least it was a new county for me. Speaking of new counties, it annoys me when I see an unrecorded county on the herp atlas, and our motel was directly on the Tennessee-Alabama line on account of our dog's presence. Thus, I figured that I could get Giles County, TN pretty easily. Before I did that, though, I'd have to get dinner at a little rest stop on US 431 with a sign on top that reads, "Magic Mile."
While getting a chicken-fried something or other, I asked the attendant, "Why do you call it the Magic Mile?" She responded, "Because it's the luckiest mile in Tennessee." I said, "Okay, but why is it the luckiest?" She asked me if I was from up north. I said I was. "Well, we stopped Sherman's March for about an hour here I reckon," she replied. What's funnier is that Sherman was never even in that part of Tennessee; he was over by Chattanooga pushing south to Atlanta. Yep, I was down south.
Giles County didn't give up without a fight, and it took me an hour and a half of road cruising through cow pastures and fence rows before I finally spotted a Snapping Turtle sticking its head up in a cattle pond only about 200 yds from the county line.
The next morning, after some bar-be-que and the purchase of a rake, we met up with a fellow herper, Bethany Avilla, to go hit the Bankhead National Forest. The strangest occurrence of the trip happened at our meeting spot, where I noticed that she takes notes with the recycled cardboard pens that were handed out at the 2013 Envirothon. So do I.
The first spot in the Fall Line Hills of Northwest Alabama was supposed to be a tin site, but we started out on the wrong trail back into the pines. I'm glad that we did, however, because a Broad-Headed Skink (lifer), and a few Spotted Salamander larvae were right there to greet us in the loblolly pines, although the first was a bear to try to photograph. Upon heading back to the actual tin site, we met up with a group of at least 20 herpers under the command of a man by the name of Colonel Iwo. I'm only joking of course. He wasn't a Colonel, but with that many herpers, he could have taken Little Round Top if only he got a battle flag! The first find at the ACO site was a familiar sighting to me--a Devil Scorpion. These little scorpions can pack a punch that will give you the most intense pain of your life for twenty or thirty minutes, but, observed under a board with a flipped rake, they're harmless.
Other finds at the ACO site by myself and the group included Green Anoles, Five-Lined Skinks, Fence Lizards, Ringneck Snakes, and my first new salamander of the trip, the Mississippi Slimy Salamander. We found five at the site all told, and I photographed the two most profusely brassy-white speckled specimens before we departed bereft of a Copperhead or a Timber Rattler.
On the way to the next site, Bethany and my family got lost looking for the Sipsey Wilderness, which turned out to play into our hand, as we just headed for our intended dusk Green Sally spot early. The shores of a small lake didn't turn up any Cottonmouths, but I did manage to throw out my back while trying to flip a large rock with my defective rake. The woods near the lake gave us yet another Mississippi Slimy Salamander before we commenced to hike the trail that went up around the lake and along sandstone bluffs that now gushed with water in some areas owing to the previous night's rain. The habitat was some of the coolest that I have ever ventured into, almost rivaling the Smokies, Nantahalas, or Southwest Virginia. Along the trail, Bethany bagged a beautiful Long-tailed that had white speckling on the sides and almost looked like a Three-Lined hybrid, I found a tiny Northern Zigzag, got a lifer Northern Cricket Frog hopping around on the mountainside, and saw a Wormsnake and a few Northern Slimies before dusk ensued.
After dusk, we found a Fowler's Toad, a few more Mississippi Slimy Sallies, and two Greens. The Green Salamanders were amazingly breathtaking and a thrill a minute to see in person after all these years of searching, but I couldn't get any photos or clear video. After ten or fifteen seconds, when I'd get the camera, the Greens would retreat back into the rock and leave only their tails exposed, leaving me only blurry footage as proof of my best Alabama herp. At one point, my Dad had to hold me up as I attempted in vain to tape a Green Salamander in a crevice about nine feet off the base of the cliff. However, I'll always remember the Green Salamanders in my "mind's eye," as Shakespeare would call it. John Muir didn't have a flickr or pictures of hardly anything he observed, and he was still a heck of a naturalist. Anyway, we departed and parted ways with Bethany, headed to our motel, and went to bed.
The next morning, we figured that we could be back home in Michigan about nine or ten p.m., but construction crews from Nashville to Indianapolis had different plans. A huge logjam north of Nashville forced us off the highway and onto an alternate route, where we got a Ring-necked snake at a roadside stop in Allen County, KY and saw Lincoln's birthplace farther up the road. Noble, our dog, became very excited around this location (we have a family superstition that our dog is Abe Lincoln). By the time we got around Louisville and into Indiana, it was already seven, and we didn't get to our Indiana spot, which gave us a Slimy and a few Red-backed Salamanders, until eight. That wrapped things up, or so we thought. On the long drive home, we began finding ticks on ourselves and in the car. This meant that when we got home, at 3:45 am, we had to give our dog a bath in town. Think you've done something strange in pursuit of herpetology? You haven't seen anything until you're so tired that you're slap-happy while giving your dog a public spongebath at four am!
So, that's that. Seven lifers, two new salamanders, seven new counties, two new states, and two unvouchered counties filled in. Thanks again, Bethany! I promise you'll get more lifers that me in the Smokies!
