When the herping is slow, you can always rely on your friends to make up some good stories or give you a good old-fashioned ragging. This morning, Jim and I are giving Mark hell for getting two sausage and egg biscuits behind our backs, while we eat peanut butter PowerBars, limp from the early morning heat. We let him know he is now responsible for finding all the herps since his stomach is full and we are weak from hunger. Mark is looking hard for an animal so we can change the subject.

But our luck does not change. There are always skinks, anoles, fence swifts, and racerunners around, but after seeing them the first time, we're not interested in them any more. We want to find the big stuff, the unique stuff: pinesnakes, kingsnakes, rattlesnakes. But these are tough to come by in the Pine Barrens, and the drought is making it even tougher. At least the mammals and birds are active this morning. We see a black squirrel hopping over the forest floor to scurry up the nearest tree, and a pair of summer tanagers. These tanagers are similar to the scarlet tanagers up north, but the male is completely red instead of having the black wings and tail of the scarlet. But the red is not as intense as the scarlet tanager's, and the black helps to contrast the brilliance of the scarlet.

At a bridge, we spot a couple of young Yellow-bellied Turtles basking on a stick near the bank. The bank is steep, but Mark wants to get his net out and see if he can catch them - there's not much else happening. As he creeps up on them, he cannot see them, so Jim and I guide him. His net hits the mark, but he comes up empty-handed.

About midday we find a Southern Toad under a piece of plywood in the woods. I take a lot of time to photograph it since things are slow. We are just biding time until the evening when we hope things will get better. Our plan is to cruise the roads for snakes at dusk and then go back to the pond after dark. Hopefully there will be some amphibian breeding going on.

The evening cruise brings a couple of black rat snakes dead on the road. I don't like to see this, but at least it means the snakes are on the move and maybe we will see some live ones. As the sun retreats and we are still snakeless, we decide it's time to go to the pond.

The pond has changed since yesterday afternoon. The quiet solitude has been replaced by the sounds of frenzied male frogs of several species vying for females - this is music to our ears, and fodder for our cameras. We don our boots, load film or Flash cards into our cameras, and walk the perimeter.

It's easy to pick out some of the species in this anuran cacophony. There are many Cricket Frogs and Carpenter Frogs calling from the water's edge and a few feet into it. A few Southern Toads call from the dry ground near the water and there's a couple of Pine Barrens Treefrogs up in the trees on the other side of the pond. A lone Bullfrog intermittently belts out his baritone request, and Squirrel Treefrogs are in the trees a little distance away from the pond.

Last year we found four male Pine Barrens calling on the opposite side of the road near a small, shallow pool of water. Many species don't need much water to lay their eggs, but sometimes the water is too shallow and if there isn't enough rain, the summer sun dries up the water and bakes the tadpoles into the mud. I once saw several insect species feeding on live tadpoles that were stuck in mud and destined to die one way or the other.

We decide the two Pine Barrens Treefrogs are too far into the swamp at the far end of the pond to look for. If there were more calling it would be worth a look. However, the carpenter frogs are calling like crazy and it would be good to get audio and maybe some photos of them in mid-call.

We are up until 2:00am photographing and videotaping all that is going on. Mark and Jim are happy because they believe they have captured some good images of carpenter frogs calling. It's hard enough to get close to this species, let alone see them calling or get a photograph of one. I got some sounds that I wanted and some video of a Southern Toad calling. On top of it all, the sky is clear, and until the moon rises, it is possible to see the faint band of the Milky Way spread out above us. After a while I decide to put my equipment away and sit by the water, watch the moon's reflection dance across the surface, and let the sounds of the night engulf me. The cool night air lifts the heat from my body as my pulse slows and this primordial place takes me in.