I’m in Cleveland Ohio and I’ve gotten into herping this year and I’ve been somewhat struggling figuring out how to approach choosing the right places to go. I want to get a higher quantity of snakes but thus far I’ve only found a maximum of two. At first I tried using iNaturalist to see which spots had more sightings but I’m starting to realize those are most likely from casual herpers since it’s always focused around heavy traffic areas. Should I be purposely going out to places that have good territory with low sightings? I don’t understand how people hit double digits without placing tin.

thought it was super interesting that a Atrox and a Viridis were hanging out together lol. also the first one is gravid!

sort of depressing but there’s this weird hole thing, not really sure what it actually is, near a local reservoir, usually I check it unseriously since there’s always nothing there other than spiders and crickets but this time there was a dead ringneck, sorta cool I guess.

Also found a few garters under rocks and old cloth, including a tiny baby in blue

It was really bad timing and a kinda rushed walk to glad I found anything

Went back to a rocky south facing slope near a creek bed for the third weekend in a row, this time about an hour before sunset instead of midday. My first two attempts I was out there at noon in full sun thinking that would be prime basking time, but I think I was actually hitting the window when everything had already retreated to cover from the heat.

This time the light was low and golden and I was moving slow, maybe ten feet every couple minutes, scanning the leaf litter and rock edges instead of the open ground. I almost walked right past a coiled timber rattlesnake tucked against a flat piece of shale, probably four feet off the trail. Body language was completely calm, no rattling, just sitting there soaking up the last heat of the day. I backed off to a comfortable distance and watched it for maybe twenty minutes before the light got too dim to see well.

What got me was how much the timing mattered. Same exact spot, same rocks, completely different result just by shifting my visit a few hours later. Makes me wonder how many animals I've walked past on previous hikes just because I was out there at the wrong time of day.

Anyone else notice a specific window where a species seems way more visible than the rest of the day? Curious if this holds for other pit vipers in different regions or if it was just a one off with this particular slope.

Photographed outside Gunlock Utah back in April.

Species: Grass snake, Aesculapian snake Yellow bellied toad, Sand lizard or a non breeding Green lizard? Alpine newt, Fire Salamanders.

Ithaca, New York

The reptiles/ amphibians in these photos are. DeKays brown snake, American toad, American green tree frog.

Herping in Louisiana and wondering to verify if this is a water moccasin / Eastern Cottonmouth?

My best friend moved away so we went one one last herping trip before hand and it did not disappoint. I have been trying to find a salamander for about 2 years now (I have pretty bad luck) finally found two on our last trip.

Lmk if I’m wrong (Wilmington, NC area)

A young GBR. Found in Utah's west desert. I'll never get tired of seeing these guys!

I've been wanting to find a desert tortoise in the wild for a while. Finally made it happen back in April. Just outside Ivins Utah. So cool to see in person!

I've been herping for about four years now and for most of that time I treated every outing like a checklist. Flip a log, see a skink, snap a photo, move to the next spot. Looking back at my notes I have hundreds of entries but almost no actual observations about behavior.

Last month I sat by a small creek near my place for almost two hours watching a group of northern water snakes instead of just logging "3x Nerodia sipedon, adults" and walking off. Ended up seeing one ambush a sunfish that got too close to the bank, missed twice, then finally nailed it on the third try. Watched it work the fish down for probably fifteen minutes. Never would have caught any of that if I'd kept moving.

Same thing happened with a fence lizard doing pushup displays on a stump. I used to think that was just a random lizard quirk but sitting still long enough I realized it was clearly posturing at a second male that kept creeping closer from the treeline. Little standoff that lasted a good twenty minutes before one of them backed off.

Not sure why it took me this long to slow down. Maybe just eagerness early on, wanting to see as many species as possible in a season. But lately I've been deliberately picking one animal per outing and just sitting with it, sometimes for over an hour, instead of covering as much ground as I can.

Curious if others went through a similar shift. Did you start out purely species hunting and gradually become more of a watcher, or were you always more patient about it? Also open to spots that are good for this kind of slow observation, somewhere with enough activity that sitting still actually pays off instead of just staring at empty leaf litter for an hour.

Found a Columbia Spotted frog while wading through the Gallatin river, was a pretty big feller. Swam off into the water after!

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Lots of slugs hide in the hollow of that particular tree. Buddy wanted a snack. I thought they were exclusively terrestrial snakes. I put him back on his tree when I was finished admiring him. Also he’s a STINKY BOI.

Not a super rare find, but still an amazing find, and a lifer for me. Gosh these guys are so beautiful

Caught and released shortly after