Desert Canyon Reptiles

There has been some severe abuses of power by some in Texas recently and there has been some behind the scenes trickery that has resulted in the passing of a bill that effectively bans the observation and collection of reptiles from public roadways. Since public roadways are the only way for someone to view or collect reptiles and amphibians in the state of Texas (since the remaining land in Texas is all privately owned) this effectively has banned reptile hunting in Texas. I can’t believe that this nonsense has happened. There are now efforts underway to encourage the Governor of Texas to veto this bill and or to pass legislation during future sessions to make it legal again. Please visit this link in order to participate in stopping this bill from becoming effective! Every voice counts, you do NOT need to be a resident of Texas to voice your opinion. Please click the link below:

Click Here!

I have several pictures to post on the blog. I have had the chance to see several Chuckwallas up at South Mountain Park in the past few weeks. I found a patch nose snake yesterday morning, but it escaped before I could photograph it. Here is a photo of one of the Mohave Rattlesnakes that we found last Saturday.

The season is well on its way. We had a nice dust storm with some light sprinkles this past weekend and decided to see what would turn up out in the desert. Headed out west of Phoenix and found several critters including Mojave Rattlesnakes, Sidewinders, a Gopher Snake, and this pretty little Ground Snake:

I went and did a little reptile display and education for a group of Cub Scouts on thursday. I brought several varieties of corn snakes, a few baby rosy boas, and a gray banded kingsnake. I showed them some rattlesnake photos, some snake skins and also gave them an opportunity to watch the rosy boas and corn snakes have a meal. I think they all really enjoyed the presentation….including the adults. Another person brought their sulcatta tortoise to the display as well. It turned out really well. One of the parents also bought a corn snake!

This Great Basin Gopher Snake was found road cruising along the Spokane River.

This Wandering Garter Snake was very aggressive.  Found the exact same snake in the same spot 2 days later.

This Western Skink was found under a pile of rocks in a forested area.

July has been extremely busy. The cornsnakes have been hatching since the 20th. We are up to our ears in cornsnakes. We have creamsicles, snow corns, albino corns, anerythristic corns, and more on the way. We had a chance to go herping as well, and found lots of really interesting herps. I will post some photos from that trip in a future post. For now, here is a photo of a hatching creamsicle cornsnake:

Last night some storms came in and me and my wife went out to see what we could turn up. There was a bit too much rain for my liking, and apparently for the snakes too… We did turn up a Kingsnake and a Western Diamondback. Here is a photo of the Diamondback:

I checked the snake room this afternoon and found 7 more eggs, this time from a pretty California Kingsnake. The eggs all look good, nice and white. The female looks to be in good condition too, which is a definite plus. That brings the current egg count to 111 eggs. We still have another clutch or two left for this season and one female rosy boa that should give birth to a handful of babies. We did good on the cornsnakes this year, but not so good on the kingsnakes, only getting 7 california kingsnake eggs, 3 gray banded kingsnake eggs, and 3 desert kingsnake eggs. We are only a few weeks away from the hatching of the first clutch of 2006!