This was kind of a last-minute outing. I had a brand new crew of first-time herpers, so the plan was just to hit a spot I knew wouldn’t let me down. And it delivered. We turned up around 25 slimy salamanders and 5 cave salamanders without really having to work for it. Conditions were ok but a little dry. Bonus finds were a devil scorpion and a stick bug, which was one of my target species.

The top find of the night was the slimy salamander egg mass! Its always a huge joy finding nests like this, and the babies were pretty well developed.

While at a dry waterfall section, we ran into what I believe was a Myotis leibii (Eastern Small-footed Myotis bat). This was beyond exciting as I finally got good use out of my newly purchased Echo-meter from Wildlife Acoustics AKA the bat microphone! Got some solid recordings and I'm really trusting the ID ability since I'm no batologist.

You could really see when they were in hunting mode and the quicker, tighter patterns from when they were about to catch the prey. Personally, it really made me enjoy getting to hear what we can't hear around us, really opening a new world! Here is one of the recordings below.

To round out the night, we did some stargazing. None of us expected the sky to open up the way it did, but it was unbelievably clear. With the moon basically gone, the Milky Way was visible straight across the sky with the naked eye. I snapped a photo on my Iphone just to see what would happen, and it actually caught this photo which really shows how low the light pollution was.

I had the Seestar S20 with me, so we set up and took our time on a few deep-sky targets. Andromeda (M31) came through with a bright core and that soft stretched halo around it. After that, we moved over to the Dumbbell Nebula and let the scope stack frames for a while; the shape and color really started to pop the longer we watched it build. Meanwhile, Saturn was an easy grab with the binoculars. Not perfect detail, but good enough.

Overall, this was a truly fantastic trip. Not necessarily from any life-changing finds, but how good the group was. It's always just a pleasure when people are genuinely excited to be out and not rushing to the cars to leave early. It was one of the most engaged teams I have ever gone out with and their excitement was truly contagious. It's rare to have people, especially people who aren't already into night hiking, sharing the same wavelength but I truly can't wait to plan another trip with this crew again!