Herp Update: Reports, Digitizing Atlas files, Fundraising – January 7, 2021
Recent Reports
Herpers,
I was surprised to receive a report and photo of an Eastern Milksnake that was seen December 29th in West Haven (photo below). You don’t often see snow and snakes in the same photo.
West Haven and Benson have the greatest reptile diversity of any towns in Vermont as a result of their low human population, their moderate climate, the presence of rocky cliffs and talus slopes (rock slides), their proximity to Lake Champlain, and their close connection to the Hudson River Valley. Still, I did not expect a snake to be active anywhere in Vermont in late December unless it was disturbed in some way and that appears to be the case.
Jenny Jackson photographed and reported the snake and she says that her husband was moving an old woodpile and probably disturbed the snake that way. She also said that the snake was very cold and slow. Since snakes are ectotherms (essentially solar heated), that would make sense. They moved the snake to one of their barns. I find it interesting that the snake was using only a woodpile for a winter refuge instead of getting further underground. I would think it would have been at risk of freezing with only a wood pile for cover.
Digitizing
Kate Kelly just finished digitizing all of our old cassette tape recordings of calling amphibians, and just a few weeks ago Matt Gorton finished scanning all of our old photographic reports. So, I am excited to say that our digitizing project should be finished by the end of the winter. All tapes of calls, printed photos, slides, and written reports, will have been digitized and added to our database by the beginning of our next field season. Matt has also assigned lat long coordinates to all records of unusual, rare, threatened, or endangered species, and we have finished assigning coordinates to all reports of even common species reported from Rutland County and many other towns within the southern Lake Champlain Basin.
Fundraising
We have raised about $18,500 toward our goal of $25,000 for the upcoming year and donations continue to come in. I am going to shut down this fundraising effort in a few weeks, whether or not we reach our goal.
Donations can still be made
- Through our GoFundMe:
https://gofund.me/70b5be0e - By using the PayPal link for our website:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/VtHerpAtlas - By sending a check made out to James S. Andrews to the address below (no overhead is lost).
The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas
642 Smead Road
Salisbury, VT 05769 - By sending a check made out to Vermont Family Forests to the address below. This is our fiscal sponsor and they are a registered 501(c)3 non-profit (they take 15% for overhead costs).
The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas
642 Smead Road
Salisbury, VT 05769
