Ontario's Herpetofauna

This was a weekend for reptiles. On Friday march 14th Sterling and I went out to an area within the Niagara region in hopes of finding some elusive reptiles. When we got to the parking spot we quickly threw on our waders, got out our camera gear and started walking with our heads held high in great hopes of what we would see. Although I cannot tell you where we were hiking, I can tell you that it is very tough and tiring terrain to walk through in waders! So, after a good long walk to the site and another half hour or so of looking in water bodies we were starting to feel anxious that we may not find any herps, let alone our main hope/target for the day. Thankfully just then I heard a slither and our spirits were instantly lifted! Although it wasn't a target species of the day it was still my first of the year and it was great to see a reptile none the less. This beautiful creature was an Eastern Gartersnake. A dashing one at that. Eastern Garter Snake - Niagara Region ...

On the road again! This seems to be my life and will continue to be for a while until I have completed my every Ontario herp in 2017 goal. Every drive is done with a purpose and has been successful so far. This trip did not fall short of just that. This was a trip to find chorus frogs. I have been running out of time to find these little frogs and with that being an issue at hand I had to make a long trip to see them with my friend Taylor Kennedy where I knew I would reliably be able to see some. Long story short I ended up driving 3.5 hours to Fenelon Falls and then another 3.5 hours back home. That drive wouldn't have been too bad if the drive home wasn't from midnight to 3:30 a.m.!  Anyway, like I said and always say, the long drive is worth it when you get rewarded with sights of herp species like these guys: Chorus Frog - Fenelon Falls Chorus Frog - Fenelon Falls   Chorus Frog - Fenelon Falls Chorus Frog - Fenelon Falls  ...

You can say it was kind of like going home. After a long winter Sterling and I were back in action and ready to go out into nature and find some herps. And this time we visited some of our herping sites we call home in Norfolk County. Being early in the year still with temperatures still well below 10 deg C we did not expect to find a lot of herp diversity on our trip. But alas, we needed to go anyway to find some of the species needed for our quest to find every herp species. So we went. Around 10:30 a.m. we found our first herps of the day, an Eastern Red-backed Salamander and two Blue-spotted Salamanders. Like the Spotted Salamanders from the previous day, the Blue-spotted's were found in the entrance to a burrow underneath cover. One of the salamanders dove back into the whole faster than I could notice that it was there. The other stayed up and allowed us to take a few pictures before putting him back at his burrow. Blue-spotted Salamander - Norfolk County Safely ...

Friday March 31st, 2017 was the official start date to my herping "big year" in Ontario. A big year is a term used by birders to describe their goal of finding the largest number of bird species within a certain geographical area within one calendar year. I have decide to take this idea and morph it into something new for reptiles and amphibians. I am calling this the every Ontario herp challenge. This year it will be signified and hashtagged on social media with my tag "#everyONherp2017". Please feel free to follow my updates on the blog to get more in depth stories of the adventures of finding each species, follow my picture updates on instagram, and/or follow updates that I will be posting on the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas page on facebook. Any support by identifying your sightings to me through emails or messaging on social media would be appreciated (please refer to the contact me page for my email address). As I was saying, last Friday was the sta...