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.

A Missouri Turtle

Typically, when you think Missouri turtle you might think "Box Turtle," but I ran into one that is not in Iowa at a park we went to in Missouri today. She was in the middle of laying eggs. Check out these shots...


This is a Cooter Turtle. She was laying her eggs in some dirt right next to a roadway.


She was undeterred by our shooting photos. We didn't want to bother her too much though. So we took a few shots and then left her be.

In the same park, we also saw a hole that had been dug up where eggs had been ransacked by some foraging animal like a raccoon. I can only assume they were also Cooter Turtle eggs.

While we were there we saw a six lined skink as well. I almost caught him but he was a little too quick on the draw for me.

Some Field Shots from Earlham, Iowa

A week back I was in Earlham, Iowa at a camp overnight...and of course, while I was there I did some herping. Here are some of the shots:

This is a Cope's Gray Tree Frog. There was quite a bit of calling going on between these creatures and they were very loud.

Here's another one in a small pool-like area at the end of a slide. There were lots of these frogs around this area. As I said, they were very loud.

With all the calling going on, love was in the air! One interesting attribute of the Cope's Gray Tree Frog is that they can change colors in a matter of seconds. The colors of this frog vary from bright green to gray to brown. It's pretty cool!


Here is a shot of an American Toad. These guys are plentiful in this area. They are another species that varies quite a bit in color patterns.


For another shot, look at this American Toad. He is almost black compared to the other toad I had shot. Same area, just a large variety in coloration among these toads.



Here's a little Eastern Garter Snake. You can see from his eyes that he is ready to shed. I found him by flipping an old piece of tin. Actually he was sharing the same space as the black American Toad.


This is a baby American Toad. He was so tiny. Look at the next shot...

It took me about 30 shots to get him to stay still long enough in my palm to get a shot like this. He was a really cool little toad.

These next two shots aren't herp species but they are interesting shots nonetheless...


This is an Iowa Pleistocene Snail. It is actually an endangered species in Iowa (I had no idea!), I think snails are really interesting creatures. They also make up the diet of many different herp species in Iowa!


This is some kind of a field mouse. Not sure honestly what it's actual name would be. He never tried to bite me. He had a shorter tail. The field I caught him in had been freshly mowed so it was kind of easy for me to catch him.


The final snake I caught was this Brown Snake. He too was in that freshly mowed field where the mouse was.


All in all I had a good visit to the camp in Earlham. Thought I would share these nice shots with you.

Flooded Banner

I went out to Banner again today to see if I could spot any herps. I saw a few interesting things.


As you can see, the flooding displaced a lot of fish and many have met a similar fate as this one because they are in oxygen-starved pools.



One thing the flooding has done is create an absolute abundance of frogs. Look at this Bull Frog just hanging out in the murky water.



Here's another Bull Frog. This picture doesn't do him justice. He was absolutely huge. If I could have caught him, I would have but he wouldn't let me get any closer to him.



I also caught another Painted Turtle crossing the road again. He wasn't as timid as the last one I caught.



Look at this American Toad I found just sitting in the road. He was really nifty. He let me get several good shots of him and then I scooted him off the road so he would be safe.



I know this isn't a herp, but it is still incredibly cool. This is a female Wolf Spider carrying an egg sac. I saw her when I did a little flipping. She stayed still long enough for me to take several decent shots. Pretty cool find, in my opinion.

Another trip to Banner

Our area has been undergoing some Flooding. I wasn't sure if I could get to Banner or not but I was able to get there, even though the park itself is closed the roads around the park are not.

So I walked around to see if I could see any herps and have some alone time with God as well. Well it wasn't too long and I came across this Painted Turtle crossing the bike path.

This was a female and I wasn't actually sure if she was gravid or not. During June the female painted turtles are looking for nice sandy soil to lay their eggs. But because of all the flooding in the area she just may be a little displaced because of that.

This shot of her plastron reveals why they are called Painted Turtles. She had a beautiful design on her shell. The carapace is usually a dark, olive green color.

I let her go from the end of the parking lot that had flooded. She swam away after a few moments, happy to be released.



Here's a shot of some of the flood damage to the bike path. It is washing out some of the areas.


This bridge usually hovers over 60 feet above this river. But the currents had actually run over the bridge. Luckily there was no washout around the bridge. It is pretty amazing damage we have been receiving because of all the flooding.


Down the trail a little further, there was some big puddles of water on the edge of the bike trail and I saw a water snake but wasn't able to catch him. Then I saw two more Northern Water Snakes and I was successful catching them.


It isn't easy dealing with two very fiesty water snakes and trying to take pictures of them all at the same time, they don't tend to be the most cooperative subjects on planet earth. I don't know why it is, but water snakes are just plain, angry snakes.


After a bit, these two calmed down a little. They still were not happy being photographed at all.



Take a look at the underbelly of these snakes. It is absolutely brilliant. Their dull, brown-gray banding on top doesn't compare at all to the beautiful markings on their underbelly. They may be angry but they sure are pretty.


On my way out I got pretty close to this Northern Leopard Frog. He was very cooperative, unlike his snake counterparts. There were gadzillions of these frogs all along the trail due to the flooding.

I had a nice journey out, and a nice talk with God too. It was a good herping day!

New Snake!

Today I decided to try a new location other than my usual trip to Banner and it paid off! I found a spot where some debris had been dumped near a bike trail, so I decided to do some flipping. What I found was four Ring Neck Snakes. These guys were really cool. I haven't caught a Ringneck in Iowa yet (I had caught Ringnecks down in Florida as a boy though) so this was pretty cool. Here's the shots of the snakes...


Here's the worst holding container on planet earth (a lemonade glass!) but it's all I had. They were very cool-looking little creatures.

Here's the underside view of the four ringnecks. They were all very wiry and worked up. I wanted to try to get a few good shots. Most of them blurred up on me. But this wasn't too bad. You can see the color patter on their bellies ranging from a banana yellow to an almost apple red.

This one was beautiful. He had recently shed. Two of them were in opaque phase and their eyes had greyed over which means they are going to shed soon. But this guy was alert and stayed still long enough for me to get a good shot of him.

All in all, ring neck snakes are very cool. They also don't get much bigger than what you see here...maybe eight inches in length.

Banner Again

I went out to Banner for a stroll and some snake hunting and had a good time. I came across a few interesting things. Here are the pictures...


Here is a Northern Water Snake swimming across this small pond. As I got to take a shot or two of this one, you will see in the picture below that there was another one close by to me.


This is the other Northern Water Snake that was swimming in the same pond.


Around from that pond I caught this beautiful Blue Racer. From Florida, where I'm from, we had Black Racers that look a lot like this but were black and not bluish-gray.
Another interesting distinguishment between the racers of Iowa and the racers of Florida is the disposition of the snakes. Floridian Black Racers are very aggressive and have a very bitey nature (not unlike the water snake). But the racers in Iowa (at least the ones I have come across) are skittish creatures and they will ball up hiding their heads, not having too much tendency to bite.

I left this gentle Blue Racer right next to where I caught him. He stayed coiled up on the top of the rock (hiding his head). When I walked back by this spot about 15 minutes later, he was gone.

This was a sad discovery next to the road...a Fox Snake that had been run over by a car. The sad fact is many drivers will intentionally swerve to run over a snake like this. This was a pretty snake...too bad he didn't make it through this spring.

A Couple More Little Finds

Yesterday had a little trip over to Banner and found a couple of interesting things I thought I'd share.

Here is a little Small Mouth Salamander I found under a log. I did quite a bit of flipping but I only found this one salamander.


If you look carefully, you will see the little Easter Garter Snake I came across.


Here's a better shot of him on the bike path. He was a little wound up so I didn't bother him too much.

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Stroll off the trail at Banner

Went for a walk this morning at Banner. I got off the trail and went and did some "flipping." I was able to find some things I have never found before. I'll just give you the pictures and then descriptions.


For me, this is every snake-hunters dream. A big piece of thrown-out carpet in the woods. Snakes love this kind of stuff. By the way, there was nothing there today, but just last week, I caught a 3.5 foot Fox Snake under this very piece of carpet. So you never know.

When I flipped this log, there were a couple of surprises waiting for me. This little Eastern Garter Snake was one of the things there. He was pretty funny. Because it is cool, he was really sluggish and slow. But he did open his mouth at me but he couldn't do much more than that.

Then under the same log was this little Small Mouth Salamander. This was very cool for me, because I have never caught a salamander in all my life...not once. So this was a special find for me. the crazy thing is I ended up finding five total this morning. Very cool.

Here's a shot of the other four Small Mouth Salamanders I found. They are the coolest creatures. The sleak black look of their bodies is just really nifty. I think salamanders are very cool creatures.

Now, this little guy is a Plains Leopard Frog. He was under another log I flipped and was only about maybe two inches in length. But he, like all the other finds of the morning wasn't really moving very fast at all.

This is a Neonate Northern Water Snake. He was curled up under a rock. He, too, was slow and sluggish on this cold morning. I really thought his coloration was beautiful.

All in all, this was a good little walk this morning. In my opinion, there's no better way to get exercise than to do a little herping while you're at it!