Good news, bad news "44:21.35N 68:18.74W"
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sun 17 Jul 2011 12:57
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First the bad news. Careful study of the species
distribution maps in my guide to reptiles and amphibians of the eastern United
States reveals that precisely none of the more than 70 species of lizard
found in the eastern states lives in New England, which explains the curious
lack of lizard sightings since we arrived here. So no lizard photos for the
Blog.
The good news is that other wildlife
abounds. Yesterday we had to stop while cycling to let a garter snake cross
the track (I was not ready with the camera unfortunately), and the many ponds
like this one
 are not only full of noisy frogs like this one
(another Bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana),
 but also contain terrapins. This chap is an Eastern
Painted Turtle Chrysemys picta picta (there are several subspecies so
it gets three Latin names, but this one is easily distinguished because the
scutes on his back are in clear rows) who was just about to crawl out onto
a rock just in front of us to sunbathe when Alison chose to dance up and
down waving her hat about on account of some biting fly - so no picture of
basking terrapin.
  And there are beaver. We haven't seen any yet
because they are nocturnal and it is very difficult to get to their lakes at the
right time in midsummer without a car, but here is one of their dams (a small
one). The dam engineering is wonderful - some of them are 2m high, made out of
sticks, stones and mud.
 And here is a lodge. This one is about 2m high as
you can see from the bulrushes behind it.
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