Sorry its taken so long to post such a small outing, but my dial up connection seems to be getting worse as time goes by. So far I only have a couple of pics uploaded to post but I may add a couple more later.

The first stop of the day was of course Muskatatuck NWR, where I hoped to add a couple of snakes to my list of snakes photographed in state. I seemed to have all of my luck right off the bat. I walked around the marsh near the nature center and quickly located 3 basking copperbellies one of which appeared nearly 5ft in length! This was probably the biggest water snake I've ever seen, unfortunately because he was so far out over the marsh I could not get to him. As I looked around for more basking water snakes I noticed a medium sized garter laying in the leaves next to my foot. At a different spot along the marsh I noticed a tail in the water. I ran over to the water and pulled up a beautiful 2.5ft eastern ribbon snake.

Eastern Ribbon Snake
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Upon returning to this spot to release it, after photographing the snake, I had to make a quick grab for a nice 3ft. copperbelly that was swimming near the shore.

Habitat
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After succsesfully finding our my two main targets ascociated with the marshy areas, I headed to search for rough green snakes at a spot in the park where I have found one and heard of another being seen. This was, not surprisingly, unsuccesful except for another eastern garter.

After this, I headed back north and decided to stop at Muskatatuck County Park and Versailles S.P on the way home. At the county park the river was flooded and the sun was on the other bank so any chances of photographing a midland water snake, a softshell turtle, or a map turtle were shot. So on to Versailles we went. Upon searching the wooded hills I only turned up one snake, a ringneck, but I had good luck with salamanders: cave, longtail, redback, and slimy were all found.

Not a very productive outing, but the ribbon snake was great (and a new one for my Indiana snake photography goal).

Totals: 15 species

Longtail Salamander-2

Cave Salamander-1

Northern Slimy Salamander-3

Redback Salamander-1

American Toad-1

Blanchard's Cricket Frog-TMTC

Green Frog-TMTC

Bullfrog-TMTC

Southern Leopard Frog-TMTC

Midland Painted Turtle-TMTC

Five-lined Skink-TMTC

Eastern Garter Snake-2

Eastern Ribbon Snake-1

Copperbelly Water Snake-5

Northern Ringneck Snake-1