Monthly Archives: December 2020

Episode 28: Origin Stories, Part Two



Ryan Borgmann and his daughter

Hello everyone!  Welcome to Episode Twenty Eight!  I had so much positive feedback from the Origin Stories episode, I knew I would have to do another.  I started collecting interviews last May, and finished up the last one here in December.  Five stories.  Three hours.  I may have gone a bit overboard, but you all have been very good this year, haven’t you?

PATREONERS!  I want to give a shout-out to our new patreon contributors since the last episode:  Michael Moffat, Andy O’Connor, Jake Scott, Deb Krohn, Duane McDermott, and John Sullivan. Thank you all so much for supporting the show! I really appreciate it. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. And thanks in advance!

Marisa Ishimatsu

Let’s break it down for this week’s guests!  First up is Ryan Borgmann.  Ryan lives in Longmont, Colorado, and I’ve used this picture of him and his daughter before.  Ryan’s photographic work (including his Beauty of the Misunderstood work) can be found at No Coast Photography.

Our second guest is Marisa Ishimatsu from San Rafael, California.  You may remember Marisa from the recent Best-Worst episode.  Her photography can be found on Flickr.  The photo is from Peru and she’s having all the fun.

Josh Emms lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico and is the current president of the New Mexico Herpetological Society.  Some of Josh’s family (see photo) had cameos on his segment and that was a lot of fun.

Josh Emms and family

Kamil Scepanski came on the show on short notice and it was fun talking to him about salamanders.  His cool website is here (translatable to English) and here’s a link about the California newt migration that we talked about.  His photo is a happy one, after finding Pleurodeles nebulosus in Tunisia.

Closing out the show is Deb Krohn, AKA The Frog Lady.  I enjoyed talking with Deb and I think she makes a tough job look easy.  Deb lives in the Chicago area and operates FrogLady Presentations.

 

Kamil in Tunisia with Pleuredeles.

So there you have it!  Thank you all for your comments, suggestions, advice, support, Patreon support, and for listening to the show!  I love hearing people tell me that they listen to the show while in the car.  Have a great, safe, and healthy holiday season everyone, and we will talk again next year!

And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming!  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, holiday baking recipes, tips for herping better, etc.

 

 

 

Deb Krohn AKA The FrogLady

Stay tuned for more episodes! And don’t forget to herp better!

-Mike

 


Episode 27: A Conversation with Jeroen Speybroeck



Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Seven!  And we add yet another country to the list with this episode, a lengthy conversation with Belgian researcher / author/ herper Jeroen Speybroeck, recorded on Thanksgiving.  We had a lot to talk about during this episode, including Jeroen’s fire salamander research, herping in various places around the globe, and also his very good field guide to the herps of Britain and Europe (see second photo).  Jeroen and I are both life listers, and we talk about that a bit, and for the second show in a row, Australian thorny devils (Moloch) are discussed (top photo of lucky Jeroen and a thorny devil, I’m just a bit envious).

After the interview and before this episode was released, I got a copy of the Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Britain and Europe (available on Amazon!).  Between the species descriptions, range maps, and lovely species illustrations by Ilian Velikov, the book is excellent, and Jeroen and his collaborators should be proud of the work.  I’ve been poring over my copy, stroking my goatee and making future plans…

Another thing Jeroen and I have in common is the documenting of herp adventures – his trip reports can be found here and are most certainly worth your time.  Jeroen is also on Facebook and Instagram.  I hope you enjoy our conversation!

PATREONERS!  I want to give a shout-out to our new patreon contributors since the last episode: Mike Rochford, Josef Thompson, Alex Krohn, Matt Ratcliffe, Jeroen Speybroeck, Bryan Hughes, Brandon Bourassa, Josh Holbrook, and James Mcghee. Thank you all so much for supporting the show! I really appreciate it. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. And thanks in advance!

And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming!  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, life list bragging sessions, tips for herping better, etc.

Stay tuned for more episodes! And don’t forget to herp better!

-Mike

 


Episode 26: Aussie Herps with Scott Eipper



Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Twenty Six!  We’ve had shows coming from the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and now we get to add Australia to the list.  Last month I talked with Scott Eipper, who hails from Brisbane, up in southeast Queensland.  Scott and his wife Tie own and operate Nature 4 You, and though their company they are involved in wildlife demonstrations and education, surveys, consulting, and more  Scott and I talked about his work, but it was also great to chat about herping in Australia, and some of the differences and similarities to North American herping.  I enjoyed Scott’s perspectives, and I have to say that I got more than a little pumped about someday visiting Australia, and perhaps the date for ‘someday’ just got bumped up a little bit.

We also talked about Scott’s book projects (see above photo), co-authored either with his wife Tie or with Peter Rowland.  I have the frog book, and it’s pretty good – I will have to pick up more before I head over to you know where.

Patreon:  This episode marks the Patreon kickoff for the So Much Pingle podcast, and a number of folks were kind enough to respond the first day!  Many thanks and an SMP shout-out to Justin M, HerpMX, Jill Rials, Smetlogik, Joshua Wallace, Ryan “Jungle Deviant” Borgmann, Marty Whalin, Christopher Smith, Emily Taylor, John Burris, Kamil S, Brandon Kong, ChellsBells, James van Dyke, and Brandon Ballard!  Much appreciated.  To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page.

And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming!  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, roos and wallabies, tips for herping better, etc.

Stay tuned for more episodes! And don’t forget to herp better!

-Mike