Went out to a spot in Central Oregon I have been going to for years and had my most productive weekend on record. Fellow forum member Dman and a buddy of mine spent 6 hours Saturday and roughly 4 hours Sunday walking along the river and finding snakes the whole way.
The Crotalus were out in force and we found 9 during the two days we were there, Crotes and Coluber are the usual finds in that area but 9 is a very good number. They tend to be highly variable in this area and and we found a bunch of the different phases.
First a more standard color
Crotalus viridis oreganus
A more yellow individual
Light brown
Very dark,by far the darkest I have seen.
A very small last years baby, I don't know how I saw this one it had a button and one tail stripe showing through 5 feet of sagebrush and grass
A couple randoms
This place is always thick with racers but I have never seen close to the amount we saw this weekend easily a hundred.
At one point we were standing on the trail as at least 5 males were batting and chasing a female, they continued chasing each other around for the better part of 20 minutes. We actually left them and came back an hour later and they were still going at it pretty crazy the amount of energy they were using fighting each other and chasing those females.
Coluber constrictor morman
Up in a tree
Me and this guys sat and watched each other for several minutes
I wish I was able to get video of the racers going at it but you couldn't even tell what was going on if you weren't in the thick of it.
The trip was full of Pituophis as well and we must have found we found 7 or 8 while we out there.
Pituophis catenifer catenifer/deserticola
These are in the intergrade zone but some key out more P. c.c. than P.c.d. and vise-versa
Much better than one of us dorky dudes holding the gopher.
We saw several Southern gators over the weekend but this guy was huge, thee biggest I have ever seen.
Elgaria multicarinta
We saw tons of Sceloporus and a couple Skiltons skinks over the weekend but neither made it to photo's. The weather was perfect mid 80's with a slight breeze and not a cloud in the sky great time to be in the Oregon Desert.
A couple of non-herp photo's
We did find a ton of Scorpions but this was the only photo I got
We startled this herd of dear as I rolled over a hill crest needless to say they startled me too!
We found this racer in camp and brought it back to show the fishing group we were with, it stayed in the couple holder for a half an hour.
Thanks for looking,
Nate
Railway Line Champion!
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