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Locations
Dates
Weather
Species Summary 
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Left early morning to meet my brother Brian in Sun City, Riverside County for a general recon trip. Morning was hazy and cool, no clouds or wind. Started at about 9:00AM by checking out the Juniper Flats area but found that access was closed off by the Korean church there. Flipped some dumps on the way out with nothing. Decided to try some rocky hills south of McCall. Terrain very steep and brushy between rocks...hard to get around, extremely dry, not even one blade of green grass. First saw only a couple small unidentified lizards but Brian reported seeing a large lizard which must have been a Granite Spiny. Spent about an hour hiking around then flipped some stuff on the way out with one very dark Elgaria and a very fast large lizard which I assumed was a Grainite Spiny. Finally saw a large Granite Spiny (life) perched on a rock on the way out...tried but couldn't get close for a pic. Due to the dry conditions we decided to try the desert. Arrived at Whitewater River late morning around noon. Sunny, hot and breezy but not uncomfortable. Searched the river bottom for about an hour. Flipped some Side-blotched Lizards under some refuse. Shortly after that Brian pointed out a medium sized lizard which appeared light colored with an unpatterned tail and a prominent black mark on the side of the ventral surface about midbody. Albeit it allowed only distant inspection deduction including range consideration indicated a Mojave Fringe-toed Lizard although the habitat seemed to lack enought dune type situations. It would have been life but it is possible that it was a Zebra-tailed Lizard with a faded tail. There was a nice flow in the river and Brian again spotted a good one in the water, A cute little California Treefrog...somewhat strange in the middle of the day and the desert...very cool. Couldn't turn up anything else of interest though so we decided to try to find the Coachella Valley Preserve or HCP...in retrospect, should've done some homework.. Turns out the area we did find and assume was the preserve was not it and on the south side of 10. Never the less it was an expansive area of dune land which provided some fun tracking etc. but no herps until I saw a light colored lizard run under a piece of tin...flipped the tin of course but some how the litte bugger got lost! Shortly afterward we saw a tin bucket top and flipped what turned out to be a sub-adult Desert Iguana (life). The lizard remained motionless as we made sure it wasn't a Uma. I'm kicking myself for having totally forgotten to take pics! We decided to call it a day and took a leisurely drive through Palm Springs on the way out. |