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Field Trips
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| One of my favorite pastimes is
finding, observing, photographing, and sometimes capturing
reptiles in their natural habitat. This nonstandard hobby is
known as "herping," which is a derivation of the
Greek root word herpetos, which means "to
creep," and refers to reptiles and amphibians (though my
focus is the reptilian aspect). It's similar to birding,
except the target species are different.
I've been known to forgo sleep and even food to get to those
"hot spots" to find my target species. In this
picture, I'm stalking my quarry by crawling on my belly through a
boulder-strewn field which, I found out later, was also full of
buffalo chips! The lengths to which I go to bring you,
Gentle Reader, interesting web content! My quarry was the Eastern
Collared Lizard, which you can read about on my Oklahoma
page.
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| Although I've been catching
reptiles for as long as I can remember, it wasn't until I started
bringing a video camera along on my forays that I started
documenting my finds. I have "captured" on video and
photographic (and now digital) film all sorts of
animals.
When I was younger, I felt compelled to capture every lizard I
came across to keep as a pet. These days, I'm more content to just
capture them on film. I enjoy watching the animals as they go
about their day-to-day activities in their natural
environment.
The bullsnake in the picture
at right is one such beast. I'm sure this snake would fetch
a nice price in the pet trade (and many wild-caught reptiles are
available through such channels), but I figured it was better off
eating field mice where I found it. However, I'm not opposed
to people capturing and keeping reptiles for their own enjoyment
(or for furthering captive breeding programs).
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| Now, I bring my cameras along
whenever I take a trip so I can see what sort of critters the
local area has to offer. If you can find an area posted with
signs like the one at right, you know you're in a good location!
To learn more about this hobby, please click on the topics I've
provided via the links below. The "My
Trips" section is HUGE, and growing larger all the time,
as I add species accounts organized by state/country.
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Up | Laws
& Equipment | Methods | US
Reptile Identification | My Trips | My
Life List | "Snake Calls" | Other
Peoples' Pages |
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