Did I mention it was a long, hot drive to Texas?  We always have plenty to talk about on the way, and when the conversation lagged, Jim broke out some Riders in The Sky.  You can't go wrong with a little cowboy music, especially the yodeling parts.  We made it down to Houston county by evening, and did some road cruising in the state forest.  We found a sad DOR - an adult female Eastern Hognose (Heterodon platirhinos) on one of the forest roads.  On the bright side, we found a live Texas Rat Snake (Pantherophis obsoletus lindheimeri) crossing the road.

We heard frogs calling and toads trilling at a low spot along the road, and stopped to have a look.  Green Treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) were making a racket, and I saw several pairs in amplexus.  Woodhouse Toads (Bufo woodhousii) were also present, although they didn't really look like the woodhousii I'd seen elsewhere - these were smaller, and very plain, and very brown.  The calling toads were Gulf Coast Toads (Bufo valliceps).  One of my favorite field herping activities is photographing calling anurans, and I was happy to add valliceps to my list.

The next day we met up with Scott Wahlberg, who would spend the next couple of days herping with us.  Scott is one of the nicest herpers you'll meet, and I'm sure he thought we were a little nuts coming to Texas at the end of May, when daytime temperatures were getting into the 90s.  Nevertheless, he got out in the field with us and was very helpful.  Scott was working on a conservation project involving Louisiana Pine Snakes, a species nearly gone from Texas due to habitat destruction and poor forest management.  It was interesting to hear him describe his efforts in locating Pituophis ruthveni using box traps.

We spent a very long, hot day driving from tin spots to junk piles in search of the elusive Buttermilk Racer.  No big colubrids were out, unfortunately - we found a few Rough Earth Snakes (Virginia striatula) and a valliceps or two and flipped tin and boards until our flippers were sore.  I did the best I could with one arm, and left the heavy stuff to the other guys.  At one point we stopped at an old sawmill, and while the herps were thin on the ground, we did see a small colony of Rafinesque's Big-Eared Bats clustered on a ceiling in one of the old buildings there.  Even when the herps aren't biting, there's always something cool turning up on our trips.

It was hot, sweaty work on a hot, sweaty day, and while we were disappointed at our results thus far, we weren't ready to throw in the towel.  Prior experiences had taught us that sometimes you just have to grind it out to get results.  We kept on going, herping trash piles and abandoned buildings into the evening hours.