Plains Leopard Frog

There are three types of leopard frog distributed throughout Iowa (the Southern Leopard Frog, the Northern Leopard Frog and the Plains Leopard Frog). There is another species very similar that often is labeled as a leopard frog, the Pickerel Frog.

Today I caught a little Plains Leopard Frog a good distance from the water, which is why I was able to catch him. Here are the best of the pictures I took (after I was able to get him to calm down).

Another Herp Trip

Today, May 16th, was a cooler day. The high only reached 60 degrees. So in the early evening I asked my sons and their friend who was staying over if they wanted to go on a snake hunt. They were all game. I had seen a new spot recently and wanted to check it out so off we went. We mostly came across brown snakes and garters but we also saw some cool spiders. Here are the pics...

This next Eastern Garter was a beauty! She was over 30 inches long and had a real deep copper color. She was real docile as well because of how cool it was. The person holding it at the end is Noel, this was his official FIRST find on his own. He was a little hesitant but he overcame it and caught the biggest snake of the day!

Recent Herping Trips

Here is a video from one of our most recent herping excursions...

Here are some pictures from that same trip:

My most recent herping trip was today (May 14, 2009). I had a little success. No video but here are the best pictures I shot:

Nice Surprise!

On Friday, May 1st, we were at a local softball field at Fort Des Moines County Park getting in some practice. Afterwards we took a walk around one edge of the lake. Of course, I was on the prowl for any snake I could find.

I came across these two Northern Water Snakes sunning in the grass. They couldn't have been more than three feet apart and they were actually about ten feet or more from the shore. They were in a pile of rocks off shore.

Each snake was well over 40 inches long. The one in the photo with the dark belly was the longest (and the meanest). It was a nice find on a really pretty day!

First Herping Trip of 2009 was a bust!

The cold days are limiting reptile finds...

The other day I drove out to Banner. They still have a lot of the roads closed because the water is still very close to the road. But I drove around the signs anyway. I came upon a very cool find. A Smooth Softshell Turtle. It was awesome. Here are some pics I took of him...



This was an upclose shot of him. He is a rather handsome fellow. I love the snout-nose on these guys. They really are very cool creatures.



His shell was very rubbery to the touch. And the turtle actually has some limited control on movement of the plastron (especially the rear section). The coloration was a deep olive green helping him to blend into any watery environment perfectly.

Their design is perfect for fast movement through the water. They are like bullets in the water.

They can also make short, very fast spurts on land. His neck is extraordinarily long. And after a while he began to show quite a bit of displeasure from being handled. Take a look at this shot I took as he was trying to bite my face off...

Field Shots near Brown's Woods State Park

Me and my son went to a place just outside of Brown's Woods Park. Actually it was a soccer field that had been recently flooded from all of our recent flooding. We had been told about a story that appeared in the paper where people were cleaning up flood debris out of this soccer field and it was littered with snakes. So we thought we should go and check this out.



We walked the outskirts of the field and only encountered a whole lot of frogs. Here's a couple of smaller American Toads we found along that walk.



From there we encountered this very fiesty Brown Snake when we flipped a trash can over.



Near the entrance of the soccer field we saw a couple of pieces of plywood in the grass. When we flipped them, we found this beautiful Fox Snake. He was around 24 inches long and had quite a fiesty spirit at first, but after a while, like most fox snakes, he calmed right down and was handled rather easily and freely.



Under the same plywood was several Eastern Garter Snakes. This one was real skittish and kept trying to hide his head under his body (something I haven't seen so much in garter snakes, but more so in racers).



All in all, we had a real good trip looking for snakes, it was just incredible hot outside. Now is a very good time of year to do "flipping" for snakes because of their tendency to lay low during the summer heat. Most snakes are more active at night during this time of year in Iowa because of the heat.