Arriving back at camp after our morning foray into the canyon, we decided to wrangle some herps and then rustle up some grub.  We decided to photograph the Blacktail at its capture site to minimize stress on the animal and reduce the chance of an accident, so it would stay in the bag another day.

The Baird's Rat Snakes and a Rio Grande Leopard Frog were examined and photographed, and then interred in a spare ice chest alongside the Blacktail.  The ice chest was a handy way to keep herps cool during the heat of the day, needing only a small container of ice cubes to keep the inside temperature between 75 and 80F.  A small digital thermometer helped to monitor the internal temperature and was checked throughout the day.

Photographing the Leopard Frog in good light was a bit challenging.  The frog needed to be kept covered with hands while the shot was set up, to keep it calm and cool. Hands were pulled away when the shot was ready, but close enough to act should the frog leap away, which it did several times.  The frog was periodically bathed in cool water to keep it clean and to prevent it from overheating.  It always helps to have a couple good 'herp wranglers' on hand for these situations.

Since we had planned to be busy in the early mornings and evenings on our west Texas adventure, lunch would be the big meal of the day, and we had provisioned ourselves accordingly.  While eating we amused ourselves by watching several Texas Striped Whiptails (Cnemidophorus gularis gularis) whose home territory was apparently our campground.  These lizards were very active in the heat of midday, foraging for insects around the campsite.  They would crawl a foot or so and stop, their heads swinging back and forth as they scanned the ground for insects, and then move on again.  They ate a great many small ants as we observed them, but ignored the large red ants which had a colony under our shelter.  This was a new species for us; how nice it is when the herps come to you!

After lunch Ken "Bone Daddy" Felsman skinned the DOR Diamondback, saving the vertebrae, and tossing the rest of the innards a short distance away from our campsite.  Within minutes the first of several Turkey Vultures appeared and settled in for a snack, so in the end the tribe of scavengers was not completely cheated out of a rattlesnake meal.  Ken set the vertabrae at the entrance to the red ant burrow, and they started cleaning the remaining tissue right away.  It didn't take long for them to completely strip the bones.

Late afternoon meant it was time to prepare for the evening's road cruising.  After setting camp to rights, we piled our camera bags, snake sticks, and both coolers into the Blazer, and headed west of 90 towards Langtry, and the southern end of the Pandale Dirt Road.