Nikki Lupus and Mr. Sherwood

I'm going through my gallery and cleaning up some pictures today. I'm very happy with how this one turned out. It was an entry for a competition on deviantart. I dropped out of it after the fourth round due to time constraints, but it was fun while it lasted.

They are ready for hot chocolate.

Farmer Fence Lizard

In Flight

Here is Danny Sherwood, flying. I hope your week is going well.

Sphenocephalus

Yet another hellbender post

The waterlogged phone no longer works, but these hellbenders don't know that. 

They are also unaware that Little Caesars no longer sells crayfish and isopod pizza.

Hellbender Illustration

What the Heckbenders?!

So road trip #3 finally happened, except that road trip turned into plane trip. I went to Missouri this weekend to visit my good friend and to see a facility that is raising hell(benders). YES! Hellbenders!! If you don't know what a Hellbender is, see the pictures below:

Meet Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, the largest species of salamander in North America. It's flat, it's slimy, it's awesome! In the wild, these guys live in fast-moving streams under flat rocks and can grow to over two feet long. The Hellbenders pictured here are only tiny little babies. They should be called Heckbenders.

I have wanted to see them ever since we talked about them in Herpetology four years ago. They did not disappoint.

We saw some other cool things as well:

A two-headed snake.

Mrs. Pileated Woodpecker.

Mr. Pileated Woodpecker.

Lots and lots of lichens. We found and keyed out a really cool species (Psora pseudorussellii), which I forgot to photograph.

Hyla cinerea.

Dog-toothed violet.

Someone left their tiny soup bowls out in the middle of the woods.

A salamander egg mass. We saw so many.

And lastly, I want you to know that one of the other common names for Hellbender is Snot Otter. Have a good night.

Not that kind of Eagles

Road trip 2/3

So, on Superbowl Sunday I hopped into a van with some cool people to go see some eagles (not that kind of Eagles). We hit the road semi-early, and a couple hours and three states later, we arrived at Reelfoot Lake- the only natural lake in Tennessee. After eating lunch and meeting a gorgeous Barred Owl named Shadow (I was dumb and forgot to take a picture of him), we boarded a bright yellow school bus and hit the road again to go find some eagles. I managed to photograph a few.

We also saw two or three snow geese.

Here are some Blurry Bigfoot Pictures of an eagle catching a fish (or something) pulling the carcass of a goose right out of the water:

My name is Blurryeagle and I care what you think.

The temperature dropped 20 degrees while we were there. It was VERY COLD.

Take a moment to appreciate these yellow lichens:

It was so windy that there were whitecaps out on the lake:

These pictures don't do it justice.

We saw lots of Cypress trees with Cypress knees.

Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum).

Swirly water.

We made it back to Memphis in time for the halftime concert.

It was a good weekend

(even if we didn't see any salamanders).