© 2002-2010
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2006 Fall Field TripReports
Finds of Interest
Gallery                                               
Ghost Hunt                                 
Unofficial Report, by Brad BirchfieldOh where to begin? Maybe best to thank everybody for a great time- In no particular order, Torry- thanks for the food, camp cleaning and general �mothering� to the group, we couldn�t do it without ya. Glenn- thanks for wearing that stupid cardinals cap, now that they are folding in the playoffs. JoshE and Melissa- thanks for the wacky tobaccey and the bar and chain lube. Jonathan- thanks for taking my ratsnake, the only thing I held near and dear to my heart. (sarcasm intended) Glenn with two N�s- thanks for poking at Van, I find it entertaining. Van- thanks for not killing Glenn with two N�s for picking at you. Jeremy- thanks for the blower, it never disappoints. Kieth- thanks for hookin us up on this campsite and generally providing good info and conversation. Classic Robert- good to see you again man, always a good time herping with you. Ratsnake Russell- good to meet you and the boys�you guys hung with us like pro�s! Debo- thanks for your tshirts, they rock�wish you could have went herping with us. Erica- thanks for assaulting me Friday night. You�ll be hearing from my attorney shortly. Cyndi- thanks for acting like you didn�t notice me farting in the boat Saturday night. Kory- thanks for making all this happen. Zach- thanks for bringing funbobby. THANKS. FunBobby- thanks for entertaining us Friday night, awesome. Ryan- thanks for making me laugh brother. You remind me a lot of myself at that age. Enjoy yourself now, it gets worse. Ryan�s dad- thanks for bringin the boy�not too many dads would have done that. You deserve a medal. I THINK that�s everybody, if I forgot someone, forgive my feeble old mind. I will spare everyone my normal 14 page novella this time because if I don�t write this today, I will start forgetting things and I got other stuff at work I HAVE to get done! Ah�where to begin� Jeremy and I arrived at the lake about 13:00 on Friday. When we pulled up, Kory was already putting up the AHS banner and soon, we were gathering round the old yellow exterra exchanging greetings. Soon after we landed�Erica and Cyndi made it, then Josh and Melissa, Jonathan and a whole gaggle of us. Ratsnake Russel was already set up with his two boys (sorry, I never remember names too good!). Torry started prepping the campsite for good food and conversation while the rest of us dawned our boots and hooks for some flipping. The first spot we hit was the entrance road. Most of it was steep, rocky, and exposed to the west/afternoon sun, which meant it was perfect for milksnakes. After much work, we never turned up anything in what was otherwise perfect habitat. On the way back out the entrance road, we ran into Forrest Service Kieth and Van, so they joined our suare on the dam of the lake. In the spillway, Jeremy managed to nab the first county record of the trip (turns out my fence lizard was ALREADY VERIFIED) with a nice cottonmouth. We worked our way through the valley below the dam without finding much, but russel�s boys had a nice female fence lizard to show us when we met back at the cars. Oh yeah, there was this instance were Josh and Jonathan dug some beetles out of the rotting entrails of some animal. There�s a smell that I will not soon forget. Since the sun was sinking low on the surrounding mountains by this time, we all headed back to camp for supper and night time fun. Back at camp, me, glenn, and kieth grabbed the chainsaw and went to cut some firewood. The cold snap earlier in the week guaranteed it would be good weather for a campfire and we were not disappointed. My wife Leslee even managed to make it down since we were close to home. She brought my Jr Herper son Reagan. He seems to like FIRE, which is a little disconcerting. Friday night is always the fun night for camp because everyone is full of energy and adult beverages. After some delicious chili compliments of torry, we all settled in for stories, rumors, lies and pure BS while huddled closer and closer to the fire. Now, later on, Classic Robert showed up, then Zach and Bobby, so our numbers just continued to grow. Somewhere along the lines, Kory managed to wipe a nice big BLACK spot of ash on his face. When someone brought it to his attention and he tried to wipe it off, he suceeded to cover about 90% of his face. I remarked that it looked like some racially charged comedy routine from the 20�s that ended with him rubbin his eyes and saying �Mammy!�. At some point, since it was Friday the 13th, some members of the campfire crowd decided to go on a spook hunt. I was very content to stay by the fire with my �gold cokes� and enjoy the evening, but apparently the �ghostbusters� had a good time too. The only thing worth mentioning was FunBobby, who was in that magical state of debauchery ,that ended with him prostrate to an elm tree. Good times, good times indeed. Saturday morning, I awoke sometime after 0800 and headed to the shower to wash THE TASTE out of my mouth. Apparenlty at some point during the night, a rhinocerous took a dump in my mouth. Yicckk! After getting clean, we all had a fine breakfast, compliments of Torry and some helpers. Then, we divied up spots and broke into 2 smaller groups. One group, went to the Mulberry river to look for queen snakes as a target species, the other group went back into the mountains at some good tin sites we�d found on a scouting trip. At the first stop, the 3rd thing we turned over produced a very angry Osage copperhead. This spot was a herper�s heaven�it was about 30 acres of tin, car hoods, rocks, old refridgerators, etc. Maybe it was the temps, but for some reason, this habitat did not produce any rattlers. The landowner had recently killed one right were we were looking, but we didn�t find one. We did find more ringneck�s than you could count, some county record amphibians, a racer, 2 adult black rat snakes, a garter snake, a worm snake and several other things. I think the total animal count was like 15 animals, so it was not a loss by any stretch of the imagination. The second spot was also a farm where we�d received permission to look. It contained the remains of a collapsed chicken house. In the rubble, suprisingly all we turned up was some flavor of skink. Still waiting on the ID verdict from ASU, but it looked a lot like a prairie skink, which would be an awesome find. The second location was well kept, and even though we found plenty of stuff to flip, we didn�t find hardly anything. We did find a real nice kitty though. Other than Erica and Cyndi rolling down a hill together, there was little excitement, although it looked great. Further on up the road, we re-visted a rocky slope we�d scouted earlier last month. Last time, Kieth flipped a nice juvie timber rattler, but this time, all that was found was a hognose. We did run into two men and a young boy camping/deer hunting. One guy was real nice and interested, but the other was �mr kill-it-all snakes�. Hopefully, he�ll get bit by something venomous. Soon. After this, it was almost 15:00, so we drove back to camp to have �lunch�. At camp, we managed to see Debo and her friend. It was good to see her again, and she had Tshirts for all who wanted one. Soon after eating, we broke up again into different groups. The bulk of the group chose to flip tin that was displaced from some chicken houses by a tornado into the valley behind the lake. Others (me, jeremy, jonathan, joshE, and classic robert) decided to check out some good looking rattlesnake habitat across the valley. Before we left, I advised Zach where we were heading and gave him directions. Doom on me. When we arrived it was around 16:30 or so, so we didn�t have much time. We noticed several hunters vehicles on the road into the area we thought the habitat was accessible from. At Jeremy�s tahoe, we all grabbed tongs and headed off into the woods. We were right on our calculations, because after a short walk, we found ourselves in a picture perfect rattlesnake habitat. Perfect except for one thing! No snakes. Although we made a valiant effort and flipped every rock on this glade, we didn�t find any reptiles. We did find scorpions in plentiful supply, but that was it. So, as the sun started dipping lower into the west, we hiked back out to where we�d parked. When we arrived, we noticed something was missing. It was Jeremy�s tahoe. Now, seeing all these redneck hunters on the way in, and being this far away from anything resembling law enforcement, I must say for split second I actually believed jeremy was the victim of grand theft auto. Chaos ensued in our little party and we were soon panicking, looking for tire tracks, cursing and generally coming unwound, then off in the distance, Josh and me noticed something that looked real similar to a white tshirt. We started walking back to the west and when we�d gotten about 100 yards down the road, Zack, funBobby, Erica, Cyndi, and Ryan all emerged from the timber laughing and pointing. I will hand it to them, the pulled it of perfectly, because we were scared some guy was halfway to little rock with jeremy�s tahoe! But remember, paybacks are HELL. By then, it was pretty much dark, so we headed back down the mountain. Back at camp, I noticed that the �girls� (E & C) were quickly absent from the other group members getting ready for dinner, discussing the days events etc. Well, Torry asked me to get her lantern out of the van and light it, so I got right on that. While tryin to assemble the lantern, I notice at the south end of the campground, 2 �men�, one with a sleeveless shirt, both with real dark hair�one was waving some strange looking apparati in the air while the other had a pair of tongs�I thought to myself �huh�must be some more folks that showed up late�I wonder where they have been?��as they get closer, I notice its Cyndi with some weird marble looking eye and Erica is wearing some �fake� muscle arms�then it occurred to me that this was some sort of blasphemous tribute to me and the hulk. Oh, it was a classic if I might say so myself. Complete with mocking tributes to: my wordiness, jeremy�s penchant for touching venomus snakes, my love of a dead rattlesnake named xena, represented in a stunnig pipe cleaner sculpture, jeremy�s obsession with �tubing��you get the picture� The drama concluded with a poem written in tribute to Jeremy and Myself. I was truly touched. It was really quite funny and we got some good pics, so hopefully those will get posted soon! We still love you girls. But remember, paybacks are H E L L�oh, the things that are going through my mind. We all got quiet when Torry started flinging delicious ribeyes at us, complete with salad and beans�I know mine was incredible. After dinner, Ryan had to head to Hope. Keep in mind, they got up at like 0300 to drive up there to meet us early in the AM, then herped all day, then back on the road for a 4hr drive home. That�s a good father in my book. Hopefully, Ryan will not take drugs or join a cult or somethin, cause there aint many dads that would do that! Reluctantly, we said goodbye. After some campfire conversation, Cyndi, myself, Kory and Jeremy hopped on the boat to check for aquatic turtles. It was about a 45 minute cold, boring ride, but Kory did manage to snag another county record- a stinkpot turtle. Frozen, we returned to the fire and conversation. As I mentioned earlier�for future reference, Friday night is �party� night, because after early rising, herping all day till dark, then consuming a big meal�the result for Saturday is gonna be a lot of silence followed by folks one by one heading to their tents. I myself hung in there till about 23:30, but I was preceeded by many. I did get to view some of the digital pics from the foray into the graveyard from the night before, and I must say, there was �something� on there�hopefully, those will get posted too. But a ghost�I don�t know bout that! Sunday morning, I awoke to a light pitter patter on my tent. I didn�t even know the forcaste called for more than a sprinkle on Sunday�but since I hate packin up in the rain, I rose quickly and dismantled �camp birchfield�. All hopes for more herping were quickly abandoned as the rain continued to fall. Turned out that it rained ALL DAY. Too bad for us�we all shook hands and hugged and then headed our separate ways. There had been talk all week of creating a scenario for sighting the �great albino beast�, but for whatever reason, it never panned out. So, as Jeremy and me headed south towards the interstate I thought to myself �well, no one was exposed to inappropriate anatomy this time��. Well, that was the case until me and Jeremy (keep in mind, he is following me in the tahoe) turned the corner to get on the I-40 on ramp. Right there at that little juncture, there was a man�I am guessin in his 40�s, who is about 5 ft in front of his car, FACING the main road, right there on the corner where we turn. In one hand, he had a ciggarette, in the other�well, nevermind, but lets just say, he wasn�t Jewish. With stunned horror, I couldn�t help but think that maybe the curse of the albino has moved to me and jeremy. I called Jeremy today at work and yes, he too saw �it�. We�ll be fine after some therapy sessions, and lets hope this is not a trend. There. How's that for brief? See ya�ll next spring. |
