Yesterdays herps (Missouri)

21 years ago

A Good Way to Wined Up the Spring Season

06/05/05

Despite the late season and a high near ninety I decided to spend the day in the field. The plan was to meet Ryan Thies at a spot in Jefferson County, MO. As usual I was about an hour late and when I arrived Ryan was already photographing the first snake of the day, a nice little juvenile Prairie Kingsnake. Regardless of the immediate success we new better than to expect much from the rest of the day due to the heat. A hot walk and an hour or so later just as Ryan was stating (and I was thinking) how we were wasting our time I flipped a nice Red Milk. Thanks to a tip from another local herper we decided to move on to a new spot to look for a Timber Rattlesnake and sure enough it wasnÂt long before we found one. After a few photos it was getting late in the day so we headed back towards the car via a dry creek bed. Flipping rocks along the way produced a Dark-sided Salamander a sub-spices I had never seen before. If you ask me this was a pretty good way to wined up the spring season.

Photos Coming Soon

Mike

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Comments (6)

wayne_mo
21 years ago
Great day for June! I've said my farewells and raised a toast to my best spring of herping already. I can only hope that my trip to Arizona in August makes this my best summer of herping too!
Gary2sons_MO
21 years ago
Great snakes for this late in the year! It is about over until Fall. Seems like Summer can still produce that occasional good find. I was lucky enough to find a 44 inch speckled king on the move along a lake in Calloway county last week.
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kcmatt
21 years ago
Mike, read your post as I was headed out the door and decided that I would flip a couple of rocks. Under about as many rocks, I saw a very large gravid syspila (28"), an attractive 18" sypila and a racer. This is the time of the gravid females incubating.

When we were in Cali, it was interesting how many things we were told we wouldn't see or would, or more generally, how many things were "always the case" and how many of those things we proved wrong. We left thinking, don't these people know their own species behaviors better than this? (even though we did receive great help overall out there)-- Anyway, the point is that we probably do the same thing out of "the season" because instead of testing as constantly as we do in April/May, we write it off as "season ended" and our knowledge base drops back to general and assumptive.
wayne_mo
21 years ago
Matt,

True. A lot of knowledge we have about the seasonal habits of snakes is really knowledge about the seasonal habits of herpers ;-). The problem is magnified in the herping subculture by the fact that some herpers rely exclusively on the word of mouth of others and do none of their own trial and error. Of course word of mouth and local contacts are great sources of information and should be taken advantage of, but they are a supplement to rather than a substitute for one's own exploration.

Persistence and the willingness to go somewhere blind or at the "wrong time" are two things that can sometimes really pay off with a big surprise.
KeithB
21 years ago
Too true. If you read the field guides or listened to locals only, you might miss out on those amazing December and January findings for example.
evantn
21 years ago
Not to mention those June-August finds. Growing up and in college, most of my herping was in the summer when school was out. After 10 years in the business world, I went back and got my Masters and now I'm teaching high school. So I'm back to doing most of my looking from the end of May to August, with the exception being a couple Spring and Fall trips to Snake Rd. So I live vicariously through a lot of you in March, April, September and October. I'm just getting going while many of you are almost done. Incidentally, in about an hour yesterday in 90 degree temps, I found 2 Eastern Narrow-Mouthed toads, a large Red-Eared Slider and a large Eastern Garter Snake.

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