5-2-18

Trip Details

Location: Southeastern Iowa

Weather: High of 80 in the afternoon, partly cloudy, some showers

Time: 9:30 am to 2:00 pm

Herpers: Don Becker and Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch

We were in southeastern Iowa again in the morning and you could tell it had rained the night before by the Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata) that were crawling about.

I only grabbed a photo of a couple, and only got one decent photo, but I think we saw seven or eight. We didn't see much else at the first site worth mentioning so we moved on.

The weather looked good when we arrived but I think the snakes knew something we didn't. We didn't see much up and about, and soon the temperature started to drop and it began to rain. We did turn up a Western Fox Snake (Pantherophis vulpinus) hiding under some cover.

I didn't plan on making a herpjournal post today, so I didn't spend any time getting more than a voucher photo, plus it was starting to rain.

We found an adult Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon) also under cover, also only a voucher photo.

Well, walking back to the truck, this baby Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) showed up. Now I have a herpjournal post!

If you have been following along this year you know I have seen a lot of saugas this spring. This was the first baby I have seen outside of a crayfish burrow, and it was also very clean looking, having shed already this season so I was pretty happy to see it.