5-5-12

Trip Details

Location: Linn County

Weather: Clear skies, 77 degrees, windy.

Time: 2:30 p.m.

Herpers: Laura Scharosch, Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch

Went out for a quick afternoon trip. I wasn't going to go, but my wife wanted to go for a walk, and I told her if I was going to walk, I might was well walk somewhere I can find some snakes. She thought that was a good idea, or else she decided to humor me, but either way we went out to a local spot since we didn't have a lot of time. I had been here a few weeks ago and found a few fox snakes, so I figured since she doesn't go out with me a lot we should go somewhere we would probably find stuff.

It didn't take very long to find the first snake, a Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum).

It was squeezed between the same two rocks where I had found a fox snake and a milk snake the last time I was here. It was about eighteen inches long.

A bit farther along we heard a rustling in the grass as were about to check some rocks and pulled up a Fox Snake (Elaphe vulpina) on the crawl.

It was a small adult, about three feet long.

We worked the rock pile for about ten minutes before finding another milk snake.

It was very similar to the first one in both size and coloration.

At the end of the rock pile I turned the last rock and found another milk snake.

This one was larger than the other two, at about twenty eight inches long. It didn't want to sit still for pictures, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time with it. It was very dirty when I pulled it from the dusty rocks, so before shooting pics I took it to a nearby pond to wash off a bit of the dirt. I held it's head near the water and it took a long drink from the pond. I thought that was kinda funny. Apparently you can lead a snake to water and you can make him drink.

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