4-23-16

Trip Details

Location: Missouri

Weather: 65 degrees, climbing to 75, light breeze, clear skies

Time: 11:30 a.m.

Herpers: Jim Scharosch

I was in Kansas City to visit my sister Jill and celebrate her birthday. Obviously I can’t go to Kansas without squeezing in at least a little herping. After breakfast I had a couple of hours so I jetted out to a timber rattlesnake den that I had been shown by Courtney Gaverth a few years ago. It is an amazing place, and I knew I was hitting the absolute sweet spot in the weather and time of year for the timbers to be out in force.

Just like my last trip to see the bullsnakes, this is another trip where trying to give a play by play would be overwhelming and pointless so I will just do an overview and then let the pictures do the talking for the most part. When I first arrived I was surprised that I didn’t see any timbers out. I saw a couple of Racers (Coluber constrictor) on the crawl. It was about 20 minutes before I saw my first Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) of the day. I ended up with 33 timbers and about ten racers! It was crazy fun. In fact, I thought I had 32 timbers, but discovered another one while I was working on this report!

Thanks to Cortney for showing me this area and trusting me enough to let me visit it again. It’s a magical place for someone who really loves timbers.