Noah and Tristan had always been talking about the trip we needed to make to Snake Road in the Fall. Snake Road is a stretch of road that lies between a swamp and a series of bluffs. Every Fall, several snake species migrate from the swamp, into the bluffs to hibernate. And every Spring, the snakes emerge from the bluffs and make their way to the water. For a few weeks in both seasons, the road is closed off to vehicles and herpers from all around come to witness the snake migration.
We were planning to reach Southern Illinois on Friday night, camp out in the forest and hit 3-4 herping spots as soon as the sun came up. This time, we had 2 more people with us. Megan was a senior and a part of the Wildlife Club. Austin was Noah's friend and also a senior. I didn't know this ahead of time, but we were actually going to some of the same spots I had visited the week before with my ESE class.
We took some pictures and released it. A few minutes later we met up with Tristan and he was kind of upset that we had released it without him being able to identify it or get high quality pictures. So, Megan and Tristan went back in search of the frog where we had released it. In the meantime, I was finding a ton of Cricket Frogs and Bronze Frogs. It was so cold out that most of the time the frogs didn't even try to move when I caught them.
Tristan and Megan came back and it turned out they did manage to find that Chorus Frog and identified it as an Upland Chorus Frog. All 5 us continued flipping rocks by the stream, looking for the the Dusky Salamander. I saw a really flat rock without too much water around it and it looked promising. Sure enough, when I flipped it, I saw a small, shiny lizard-looking thing. It was the first salamander I had ever seen, but I knew exactly what it was. I called everyone over after I had picked it up and Tristan confirmed that it was a Northern Dusky. This was a first for everyone, including Tristan, so he wanted to get really good pictures of it. We were there for another hour as Tristan posed the salamander on various surfaces and took shots from various angles.
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| Northern Dusky Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Northern Dusky Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer |
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| Northern Dusky Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer |
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| Northern Dusky Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer |
Next, we made our way to the infamous Snake Road. There, we employed our usual rock/log flipping tactic, which set us apart from the rest of the people, who were just walking up and down the road looking for moving snakes. I made the first find. A baby Cottonmouth under a log. It was probably less than a foot long but it was hard to tell because it was coiled up and it was against the law to handle or move a venomous snake.
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| Baby Western Cottonmouth: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Baby Western Cottonmouth: PC Tristan Schramer |
Apparently I was having a really lucky day because I ended up finding 2 more baby Cottonmouths under logs while no one else had found anything interesting. About an hour later, Tristan found some Zigzag Salamanders. They were small and not very impressive looking but I may have thought that because I was expecting to see huge, vibrant snakes. Noah and Austin ended up finding a Longtail Salamander but they released it because they couldn't find any of us. They told me where they released it and fortunately I found it. It was a really cool looking salamander and it was a lot prettier than the Dusky and the Zigzags.
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| Northern Zigzag Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Northern Zigzag Salamander: PC Tristan Schramer |
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| Longtail Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Longtail Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Longtail Salamander: PC Yatin Kalki |
While Tristan was photographing the Zigzags, he flipped a rock and found a tightly curled up Smooth Earth Snake. The snake was probably the most docile and shy snake I had ever seen. It buried its head under its body and tried to hide from us. When we started handling it, it warmed up to us real quick, literally. It was so cold out that the snake was enjoying the warmth form our hands and becoming more active. It had probably never seen a human in its life before, being a fossorial species, so it was calm and confident once it realized we weren't a threat.
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| Smooth Earth Snake: PC Tristan Schramer |
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| Smooth Earth Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Smooth Earth Snake: PC Tristan Schramer |
I was really tired of scaling the cliffs and flipping heavy rocks so I decided to adopt the "lazy herper" method and walk up and down the trail. I saw a group of 3 people standing by a bluff, taking pictures so I walked over to check it out. They had a 4 ft Black Racer and I was really excited about this. Its large eyes and smiling face reminded me of the Oriental Rat Snake back home. It started to slither away and the other guys seemed to be done with it so I grabbed it to take my own pictures.
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| Southern Black Racer: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Me with the Black Racer: PC Noah Horsley |
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| Southern Black Racer: PC Yatin Kalki |
As I was making my way back to my group, I came across a 3 foot adult Cottonmouth crossing the path. It was a lot more intimidating than the puny babies we had seen and it gave me the whole open-mouthed threat display that gives it its name. Its golden eyes and pale white mouth made it look majestic and menacing at the same time. I knew for sure it was venomous from the triangular head and stocky body that is characteristic of all vipers.
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| Western Cottonmouth: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Western Cottonmouth: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Western Cottonmouth: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Western Cottonmouth: PC Yatin Kalki |
We regrouped and decided to head out to the next spot. We were walking toward the car when we came across another group of people crowded around a small snake. It was a 1 ft Ribbon Snake. It was significantly more colorful than the Garters I had seen but looked very similar. After the group moved off, I posed the snake by covering it with my hands and managed to get some good pictures.
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| Western Ribbon Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Western Ribbon Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Western Ribbon Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
Tristan found a Fence Lizard at some point. It was a new species for him but I had seen plenty of them the previous week on my field trip.
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| Eastern Fence Lizard: PC Tristan Schramer |
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| Eastern Fence Lizard: PC Tristan Schramer |
We then went to the next spot and decided that we would only spend 15 minutes there because we had to go to a fourth spot and daylight was fading. This place was a dry stream near a children's playground. For just 15 minutes of herping, I was surprised we managed to get so much. We found a baby Northern Water Snake and a few Longtail Salamanders.
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| Midland Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Midland Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Midland Water Snake: PC Yatin Kalki |
We went to the fourth spot but we didn't find anything we hadn't seen before. I did get a new species though, the Southern Leopard Frog.
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| Southern Leopard Frog: PC Yatin Kalki |
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| Southern Leopard Frog: PC Tristan Schramer |
This herping trip was probably the most productive one yet. I got 10 new species to add to my American Herp List or my Herpedex as I was now calling it (a Pokemon thing). My Herpedex now stood at 27 American Species.
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