5-6-18

Trip Details

Location: Benton County, Iowa

Weather: 76 and sunny

Time: 5:30 pm

Herpers: Laura and Jim Scharosch

Account by: Jim Scharosch

Photos by: Jim Scharosch

After a day if yardwork Laura and I decided to hit a local spot to see what we could find. I hadn't seen a milksnake yet this season, not for lack of herping, but for lack of herping milksnake spots. This was a milksnake spot for sure. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on the narrative except for the first snake.

It's not really common to see a Racer (Coluber constrictor) laying out basking in the open.

This one was. I took a photo then moved closer, repeated that and got really close without it moving. Laura said she thought it was dead, I didn't think it looked like it was. I picked up it't tail and it didn't move. I shook the tail a bit and it finally snapped and acted like a racer should. I don't know much about how snakes sleep, but this one sure seemed like it was sleeping. It was cool and weird.

After that we found three Milk Snakes (Lampropeltis triangulum) including one last years baby.

Two Western Fox Snakes (Pantherophis vulpinus) were hanging out under the same rock.

We also found another smaller racer that I chose not to photograph for some odd reason.