I have't had time to do any real herping yet BUT I did check out a rockpile that's sitting in between two rather gross looking pools of water along the back of the neighborhood. I spotted a giant female diamondbacked water snake (nerodia rhombifer) and she dove into the water. She was easily over a meter in length. I have seen her twice and she evades me both times. I did however catch a male that was a few feet away from her. I got him by the tail as he slid into a crevice and spent 10 minutes holding on until he got tired and gave up trying to go down the hole. I was led to this spot after chatting up a man who claimed the area was "full of moccasins" but that I had better be careful, because moccasins are "pack snakes" and one of the "most deadly in the world" I laughed, treaded very carefully and figured I would find water snakes... And sure enough... I did! The next time I saw him I said "you know those snakes are harmless water snakes... Right?" and he was quite certain that the place is crawling with rattlesnakes, moccasins and copperheads. I sure wish I could find some!!! But this area is a barren wasteland... Too dry and I feel that we will not find any sort of real snake population until we hit the parks we plan to. I even went out tonight and took a looooong walk hoping that the night would bring out the nocturnal herps. Lots of toads, lots of skinks,no snakes yet!!!

Also, being 4 months pregnant doesn't seem to help. I am finding back pain is getting worse and worse, the more I walk the more my back hurts... And I bruise just from riding a bicycle... So that's now out of the question. I am worried about being able to work through my pregnancy because all I do at work is walk around, and it's killing my back to the point where I am sometimes faltering and almost falling down! Needless to say, my field herping abilities have been somewhat limited by this...