5-06-10

Trip Details

Start Time: 5:30 p.m.

Weather: Mostly cloudy, high of 64

Location: Delaware County, Iowa

Herpers: Jim Scharosch

Account and photos by: Jim Scharosch

Rainy and cold weather was on the way, and was probably going to keep us from doing much over the upcoming weekend, so I decided I wanted to get out today. I had a couple of new places I wanted to scout, but decided to start with a spot Matt discovered last year. We had visited this location earlier in the year without much success, but we were probably a bit ambitious with how early we had been there. Matt was busy and couldn't come along.

This location is one of those great little spots. Its small but productive, and when the weather is right you can almost guarantee seeing a milk snake or two. I would love to have a string of these little spots around the state, but they are harder than you would think to find. Thanks to Matt for digging this one up.

Anyway, I hadn't turned more than ten rocks when I flipped a double, two adult Milk Snakes (Lampropeltis triangulum) under the same rock. It's always cool to get a double, and early spring is when it is most common to do so.

The larger of the two was nearly twenty-four inches in length and was a rich chocolate brown that we often find in the eastern part of the state.

The second was about eighteen inches long and had a more reddish color.

After photos I returned them to their rock and about five minutes later hit another double milk snake rock. It was funny, because it was almost a copy of the first rock, with the larger of the two being about two feet long and the brown color and the smaller being about sixteen inches and the more red. It was almost like an instant replay of the first double.

That was all I saw at this location. I hit another spot that looked good on google earth, but didn't turn out very good. I ran out of daylight before I could get to the other location, but saw a decent looking road cut on the way home. Maybe that road cut can be the next "great little spot". That's one of the cool things about herpin', there's always another spot to look for, another rock to turn and another herp to find.