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| Sleepy Hollow, NY |
It is safe to say I will never have another year like this year. I spent a whole year playing while recovering from the health problems that I've talked about enough. While I still have trouble lying down, I am certainly grateful that most of the last nine months have been relatively pain free. Because I feel so much better and had some money in the bank, I had a year full of memories.
Throughout my adult life, most years always end up having a theme. As I've said in other reviews, one year DJ and I went to New Hampshire every weekend during the summer. The following year I was introduced to Striped Bass and became obsessed. I'd drive to Narragansett or Jamestown four nights a week after getting done baking donuts at 1 am. Twice I've done Rhode Island Big Years chasing birds. I spent all of 2011 fishing for trout and keeping perfect records of how many, where I caught them, each species, and what I caught them on.
It would be tough to pinpoint what this year's theme would be. I did such a variety of things that I'd say "enjoying nature" would make sense. As an outdoorsman and a wannabe naturalist, this is such a broad statement that it really doesn't describe anything. The more I thought about it, the theme for this year was about chasing adventures. For much of the year I was out looking for something different and new. When I wasn't looking for new and different I was still looking to make everyday as full as possible.
If you are a reader of the blog, you could make a strong argument that I chased herps A LOT. This I did. I saw far more herp species in New England than I ever had. I saw species I'd never heard of (Italian Wall Lizard). My favorite day of my Midwest vacation was walking a road looking for snakes. Many days during the spring, I'd go birding only to find my eyes facing towards the ground looking for snakes as the morning wore on. Every day is an adventure when herping. Every rock that I lift is a possible winning lottery ticket. Even the most common Garter Snake is fun to hold and sometimes its a challenge to catch them. But even though so many days spent looking for snakes, I still spent triple the amount of days doing other things.
I didn't fish too much this year. I did get out a few times. I had many good days trout fishing down the Cape and in Rhode Island. I did catch all the species of trout except Lakers. I only caught a few Stripers. I caught one lifer, Mackerel. I fished my ass off in New Hampshire fishing just about everyone of my nineteen days there.
Many adventures involved fish but not a fishing pole. I went seining three times in saltwater and twice in freshwater. I got multiple lifers (more on lifers below). I went snorkeling and saw a Beau Gregory which is a tropical fish that should not be here.
Laurie and I went on multiple getaways.
- April Cape trip looking for Right Whales and Herring Runs
- Philadelphia and Delaware Water Gap
- Sleepy Hollow, NY in the footsteps of Washington Irving
- Two trips to NH in the spring. I spent 19 days camping. Laurie came up for about five of those days
- Midwest Trip for ten days Gateway Arch, Hannibal, Kankakee Sands, Snake Road, Cuyahoga NP, PA wilds elk
- A "bag night" is a night spent in the sleeping bag (so its a term used for camping). I had roughly thirty bag nights. I camped twenty five nights and slept under the stars on Laurie's deck about five to ten other nights. I'd have done it a lot more but there was always so much dew on my bag in the morning.
- New Hampshire- one moose, one bear, otter, two beavers, heard multiple species of birds at my campsite, breeding toads, two Northern Watersnakes, Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Pickerel, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout, Common Shiner, Largemouth Bass
- Cape Cod- two far off Right Whales, herring runs
- Midwest Trip- Bison, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, 16 Cottonmouths, 1 Plain Bellied Watersnake, 1 Rough Green Snake, Grey Tree Frog, Green Tree Frog, Cave Salamanders, Newt, Armadillo, Racoons, Elk, Indiana Bat
- I got one lifer mammal, Indiana Bat
- For herps of my 31 species ten were lifers
- Birds- Four lifers (Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Western Grebe, Western Flycatcher, Ross's Goose) Two state birds Sedge Wren, Townsend's Warbler
- Fish- I saw fourteen lifer fish species. eleven while seining, one seen at the Cape Cod Canal, Blind Cave Fish on a cave tour, and one by snorkeling
- Including the lifer photos I got twenty bird upgrades to add to my photo album. I'm starting an album to document mammals, herps, and fish I've caught. This year I got photos of twenty five herp species that were either lifers or upgrades from what I had.
- I have photos of 47/50 fish I've caught. Missing are Sheepshead, Mahi Mahi, and somehow American Eel.
- There are eight bird species I have seen that I did not photograph out of 401
- There are eight mammal species I've seen without a photo out of 61
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