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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Fifty Five!  I hope all of you remain safe and healthy out there as we move into the new year.  Here ‘s the first episode of 2022 and I’m squeezing it in before I leave for Peru later this week.  I’m looking forward to returning to the rainforest after a two-year hiatus, and of course I will be recording some interviews while I’m down there.

Now before we get to the show, I want to take a minute to thank all of the show’s patrons!  I appreciate all of the folks who help keep the show going and to reach fifty-plus episodes!. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

For this week’s show I am joined by Justin Michels, Andy O’Connor, and Joshua Wallace for a free-floating, open format discussion – something a little different. I didn’t have any agenda for this discussion, and really I didn’t want one going in, so I didn’t know what we would be talking about.  Kind of a different format for the show and I had to edit a bit for continuity and for people talking over each other, and to remove a few expletives.  Just a few.

Thanks to Josh, Andy, and Justin for coming on the show, and thanks for listening everyone!  Also, Hollywood Squares frame courtesy of ‘FromEquestria2LA’. And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, monkey horror stories, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers! Mike

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Fifty Four!  I hope all of you remain safe and healthy out there, and I wish you the best of this holiday season and a Happy New Year.  I’m putting this together on New Year’s Eve, so this is the last show of the year. 2022 is looking good, and just to give you an update I have a couple recorded episodes in the edit process, and a half dozen interviews that I classify as “agreed to but not yet scheduled”, so January looks to be a busy month. And I’m hoping to record more episodes from Peru when I return there in a few weeks. And of course, I’m just looking forward to getting back to Peru after almost a two-year hiatus.

Now before we get to the show, I want to take a minute to thank all of the show’s patrons, including our newest Patreon supporter, Kam Delahoz. Thank you, Kam!  Much appreciated!  And thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going and to reach fifty-plus episodes!. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

One more thank you to all of the folks who have reached out to me about the show – I appreciate your comments and suggestions, and your ideas for guests, and so forth.  Feedback is important and it keeps me from feeling like I’m operating in a giant bubble.  Feel free to drop me an email.

Our guest this week is Paul-Erik Bakland.  Paul-Erik teaches high school in the Chattanooga Tennessee area, and he has a master’s degree in the biological sciences from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. So Paul-Erik and I are friends on social media and we know each other a little bit, and I happened to see a post he made about the herpetology club that he started at the high school where he teaches.  I knew I wanted to hear more about the Herpetology Club, and of course we talked about other things as well.

Thanks for coming on the show, Paul-Erik, and thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, the optimal number of strings on a banjo, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers! Mike

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Fifty One!  Things are good here in central Illinois, and I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there. It’s good to be back, I’ve been a bit busy over the past few weeks, first there was my usual fall visit to Snake Road, which for me at this point is a chance to see old friends and make some new ones. After that I headed down to Florida to do a little herping, and  I managed to get some cool lifers, including Blue-striped Ribbons and Blue-striped Garters, which I had only previously seen DORs. Oh, and my first swamp snake Liodytes pygaea, which got me more than a little excited. I also got to observe a couple Florida softshells foraging in shallow water, and I got some nice photos of that. Elevated boardwalks can be so good for turtle watching. I also got to see several Florida scrub lizards, Sceloporus woodi. There were also Suwannee cooters and gopher tortoises and corn snakes and rat snakes and an Eastern Diamondback, so a pretty good trip, and of course I also recorded some material for the show and I can’t wait to get that out to you all.

Patrons!  I want to give a shout-out to new Patreon member Sal Scibetta!  Thank you Sal, much appreciated!  And thanks to Michael Moffat, who increased his monthly contribution – thanks Michael!  And thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going and to reach fifty episodes!. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

I’m very happy to have Bob Ferguson back on the show, many of you will recall that Bob was featured on Episode 7 way back in the day. So I brought Bob back on to talk about his calendar project which I think is amazing. If you know Bob even a little, you’re aware he’s a very passionate person, with a lot of energy. Bob’s been producing and selling calendars for ten years now and he’s raising a ton of dough for some worthwhile causes that support herps and other wildlife, and I’m just in awe of what he’s accomplished with it.

Getting Calendars – you can contact Bob directly via social media, or you can visit his Fascinature Etsy shop for easy-peasy ordering.  If you use the Etsy option, there’s a coupon code for 5 dollars off a calendar, and that code is PINGLE5. If you order two calendars, use the code PINGLE10 for five bucks off each. Three calendars, PINGLE15, and if you want to order more than three, contact Bob and he’ll give you the details on some bulk discounts and remember folks, all the proceeds go to a good cause.

Thanks for coming on the show Bob, it was fun talking with you again!  And thanks for listening everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, how to tell if you are a placental lizard, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike

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Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Forty Seven!  I hope you all remain safe and healthy out there.  I’m back in SMP World Headquarters after a brief hiatus (AKA herping) in Mexico of all places.  I went down to Baja California with a group of folks and we dipped all the way down to the northern portions of Baja Sur, and I can now claim to have traveled every inch of Mexico’s highway one. I’m thinking there should be a patch or a merit badge for that. So a couple thousand miles in a little Chevy Spark and here’s a shout-out to Jake Scott for being an excellent companion in that tiny car’s close quarters. One step above a clown car and yet it only held two clowns and their luggage.

PATRONS:  I want to thank all of the show’s patrons who contribute to keep this show rolling.  It goes without saying that I appreciate each and every one of you.  And here together for the first time is a list of all the show’s supoorters to date: Justin Michels, Jason Jones of Herp MX, Smetlogik AKA Rob Kreutzer, Ryan Borgmann, Joshua Wallace, Jill Rials, Marty Whalin, Chris Smith, Dr. Emily Taylor, John Burris, Kamil Scepanski, Brandon Kong, Issac Chellman, Dr James van Dyke, Brandon Ballard, Mike Rochford, Josef Thompson, Dr. Alex Krohn, Matt Ratcliffe, Jeroen Speybroek, Bryan Hughes, Brandon Bourassa, Josh Holbrook, James McGhee, Michael Moffat, Andy O’Connor, Jake Scott, Deb Krohn, Duane McDermott, John Sullivan, Josh Emms, Justin Elden, Matt Cage, Patrick Connolly, Chris McMartin, Michael Cravenss, Ana Ware, Tim Warfel, David Burkart, Adam Cooner, Dr. Bill Peterman, Cynthia Samake, Paul-Erik Bakland, William Bone, Jeremiah Easter, Richard Legere, Tom Eles, Jeremy Schumacher, Neill Jones, Alec Gordon, Martin Habecker, Daniel Dye, Clint Henke, Ross Maynard, Nick Sobel, Moses Michelsohn, Myles Masterson, and Ben Genter. Now THAT is quite a list, and some of the coolest people I know. Thank you all.

Andrew DuBois is our featured guest for this episode.  Andrew and I have been friends for a number of years and we’ve been to a number of amazing herp spots across the planet in that time.  Andrew is a senior natural resources specialist (and a wildlife ecologist) with Jefferson County Open Space in Colorado and part of our conversation centered on the work he does there with leopard frogs, prairie rattlesnakes, and other interesting critters.  Microphone or not, I enjoy talking to Andrew, he is a deep thinker, and I always come away from our conversations having learned something new or seeing something from a different perspective.  Aside from collecting data and managing the herps and other flora and fauna that live on the 55K acres across JCOS, Andrew and other colleagues also engage with the general public who recreate on these lands, and I’ve included some related links, including Jefferson County Open Space Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.  Andrew also took part in a rattlesnake education video produced by JCOS which provides an excellent overview of the single species of rattlesnake that can be found within JCOS, how to tell it apart from harmless snakes, and where and under what conditions rattlesnakes might be encountered.  Very useful for Coloradans who may encounter snakes within JCOS.

As always I enjoyed talking with Andrew, not only about the work he’s engaged in, but also about herpetofauna and herping as well.  You can find Andrew on Instagram and Twitter, his email is adubois@jeffco.us and his professional profile is on Weebly.

Thanks for coming on the show again, Andrew! And thanks for listening everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike