4-24-18

Trip Details

Location: Benton and Buchanan Counties, Iowa

Weather: 70 degrees, sunny

Time: 4:00 p.m. 

Herpers: Quinten Wright and Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch

I was talking about herping at a recent family gathering and Quinten, who is my wife's first cousin once removed (yeah, I had to look that up), mentioned that he would like to go with me sometime. It was a nice day and I was looking for an excuse to get out so I reached out to him and he was available so we hit the road to my tried and true local den sites.

The weather has been so weird this spring. After a very cold March and early April it has suddenly gotten very warm. We went from highs in the forties to highs near seventy almost overnight. After five days in the mid to upper sixties I was expecting pretty much all of the various species at these dens to be up. Apparently I was wrong. Things were very slow at the Benton densite and we only turned up a single garter snake. We headed to the Buchanan site and found a Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi) on the road right at the den.

Things were a little better here, but all we were seeing were Common Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis). We saw quite a few, here are a couple of pics.

I wasn't too happy that I brought Quinten out and our species diversity was so terrible. I really expected more variety to be up. Then, under the second to the last rock at the site I saw a flash of red on a tiny snake. It was digging into the ground quickly and I remember saying out loud, "Holy crap, don't let it get away!". I got it out and was surprised to be holding a Redbelly Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata).

It was seriously uncooperative for photos, and I even gave it a good effort to get these terrible pics.

At the time I thought it might be a new county record, and when I got home and checked I was right! I have been visiting this site at least once a year for eight years and I have never seen a redbelly here. You never know what you are going to turn up. It was a cool way to end an otherwise slow herp day.