The LIHS Exhibit at Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation Day at CSHFHA

It was a beautiful day today, Saturday June 1, 2013, at the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium for their annual Reptile and Amphibian Appreciation Day and for their annual Turtle & Tortoise Pageant. As usual, the Long Island Herpetological Society was there showing of animals owned by several of the membership and giving out herp care and natural history info. Used to be that another herp group or two would show up but for the last several years the only group to show has been the LIHS. We sure enjoy doing these shows at the hatchery and I hope that we will keep on participating for many years to come. It's a nice place run by nice folks.
 
The hatchery had a fair amount of visitors today, so we had a good number stop by the tables to take a look at our herps. The LIHS had a fair turnout of the membership and thus we were able to exhibit a good variety of animals for the folks who stopped by to take a look. Some folks went further than just looking and wanted to hold a lizard, a snake, a turtle or tortoise. It worked out well and I don't think anyone who stopped by the LIHS exhibit at the hatchery today was at all disappointed. In fact, I saw a lot of 'wowed' faces and a lot of smiling ones too. I cannot describe it well enough in words so I'll show it in pictures.
 
Just one thing before I go to the pics, I have to say that I somehow missed the Turtle and Tortoise Pageant; I had entered my Hermann's Tortoises with an online entry but never even realized the show was taking place. I will admit to having left the show site for about an hour, with John Heiser, my friend and fellow LIHS member (and board member) to look for and photograph salamanders on the adjoining Nature Conservancy property but the pageant did not look like it had kicked off by the time we got back. So, I don't know how I missed it.  Oh well, next year I will pay more attention.
 
Okay, here are the photos from the event. As an intro to the pics, let me say, these event would never even take place without the dedication of certain of the LIHS membership; the guys and gals, plus or minus a few, who show up at about every presentation, expo, exhibit, and so on. Thus, I will show some member pics first. Sorry to say, I did not get shots of all the members in attendance, I missed Ann and Scott and his girlfriend and a lady sitting next to me whose name I am ashamed to say I cannot remember (old age coming on folks). Oh well here are the shots:

Rich Meyer and well I guess I did get a pic of Scott,
or at least of his back, during the exhibit.

John Heiser setting up for the show (on left) and Wayne showing off his herps (right).




Tara and Harry

Harry and Chris at Harry's table and Wayne at the next table.

Vin R and John H (and one of Vin's daughters). It appears
as if Vin may be giving photography pointers to John.

An up and coming LIHS member with a very
pretty smile and a very nice ball python.


Of course, besides the members who show up at the events, there are also the animals that make up an important part of each event at which the LIHS exhibits. Today was no exception. Most of the animals that I got good shots of were my own, since they were right in front of me on my table but there are some others.



My two female bearded dragons.

Female Hermann's Tortoise who, along with me, missed the
Turtle and Tortoise Pageant. I will say this for her, one of her
offspring won the show, he came from good stock! 

One of Harry turtles, I think it was a Yellow Bellied Slider,
being very uncooperative for the photographer.

 Now, you may have thought that getting LIHS members there, with their herps would be enough but you would be wrong. We depend on the visitors who come to our exhibits to make them the hit they usually turn out to be, just as was today's. Without them giving their support by showing up for us, there would be no reason to for us to do further presentations. The only way we keep them coming back is to keep them interested and luckily for us we know how to present them with the 'wow factor'. Take harry for instance. He stands around, nonchalantly as if without a care in the world whether or not someone takes a look at his turtles and lets the turtles lure them in as can be seen in the next three shots. Of course though, Harry has a secret, he lubes the carapaces of each of his turtles with olive oil to make them nice and shiny and you can bet the firsts ones to come by Harry's tables are the women but rest assured, the men are drawn in just as easily by the glitz.

Husband walking by but wife stopped at the very first of
Harry's turtle enclosures and seems rapt in what she sees.



Husband comes back to see what wife is
looking at as she goes to grab camera and
lifts up son so he can have a look. Harry
 pretends not to care and looks away.

Husband has to touch it to figure out why it shines like that.
Harry turns to look just in time as husband is bitten on finger
(note wife smiling at that) by Harry's terribly vicious
Yellow Headed Hinge-backed Thumb Chomper.



Harry yelling for them to come back as they flee to a
safer haven. (Of course, all those captions were
in jest, no one was bitten by anything except
maybe the herp-bug and thus will wind up getting
a herp of their own to care for in their homes.)

Harry was not the only one to master the 'wow factor'. Wayne did it too, just take a look at the next couple of shots.

Wayne seems to be asking a young girl to tell her
mom just how big was the snake she just held
while her sister still has hold of it. I bet it gets
bigger with each person she tells.



Another young lad, holding that same 'wow factor, snake while
his dad takes his picture. The other kid to the left seems to be
holding his nose like one of Wayne's herps just... (well you know).

Then there were the animals on my table. Seems that one of my little lizards, a New Caledonian Mossy Gecko, got a lot of attention from kids and adults.

The lad in the white shirt asked what kind of lizard was it and
as I was saying Rachodactylus -----, he completed the name
by adding chahoua. He knew his herps. His mom is
holding it. One cool mom as they go field herping together.

Mom wants one, can't you tell!

Then again, maybe mom wants a snake.

Then there was this young fella, who was so
engrossed that he did not see the redfoot tort
sneaking up to try to taste his thumb. 



Mom maybe warning him about the redfoot?



The red headed kid looks like he is taking aim through the
bearded dragon's tail. I am thinking maybe he was setting
his sights on becoming a herpetologist when he grows up.

Then there was this pretty young lass and the bearded dragons
just wowed her without any help at all from me.

She was also pretty fascinated with the two baby
turtles I got as Craig's List castaways. I got them
from a nice couple in Brooklyn who wanted
to assure they would go to a good home
because they could not take care of them. 

You can never take the kid out of a herper, no matter how old
 they are. I know that from personal experience, and from
seeing all the older kids who stop by to see the herps.

Herpers = Ladies, Gentlemen and children of all ages.

Finally, maybe the happiest family group at the exhibit today was the one that figured out how to actually enter their tortoise into the Turtle & Tortoise Pageant which was going on concurrently with the LIHS exhibit at the hatchery's Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation Day. Why are the so happy? Read the caption to the below photo. By the way, the lady in the pic is one of my wife's bosses; she bought a Hermann's Tortoise from me last year that is now their family pet. Today, they entered that tortoise into the pageant and that has something to do with those smiles.

They weren't just smiling for the camera, they had other things
to smile about - like just having won first place for Tank, their
Hermann's Tortoise, and their entry in the Turtle & Tortoise
pageant. Yes, this knucklehead (as in me) forgot to get a
picture of their tortoise.

I think I will end it with that pic of the pageant winners. I have a bunch of other nice photos from the hatchery but no others of merit from the LIHS exhibition. I figure I can write up another post and use the other pics from the hatchery exhibits in it. Some nice shots of fish and even nicer shots of their baby turtle collection; later for that though. 

For now - let me just say thanks to everyone who made the day a success: the staff at Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Aquarium (all professional and very courteous), the LIHS members who lent a hand and the many visitors without whom there would be little reason for us to participate in these sponsored shows, or to hold our own exhibits. One very special word of thanks from me to Wayne who saved the life of my Mossy gecko when he noticed someone had placed its container in direct sunlight and it was overheating. Had he not seen it and taken swift action, I would have been going home minus one great lizard that was a gift to me from John Heiser.

All the best,
Glenn B