End of the season
 

Well another herping year(for most of us anyway) has come to an end. So what was everyone's most exciting find this year. Mine was my first Red Milk..how about everyone else?

This year was my first time to field collect herps. I have no idea where to locate anything so I'm an amateur.

I went to a nice glade area and hiked a little bit. Then it dawned on me, DUH, that the snakes wouldn't be lying around in the open so I turned over a rock. There was a red milk snake. Woohoo, I thought, this is tooo easy. Well five hours and a hundred rocks later I understand that it was just beginner's luck.

Then someone suggested collecting from the road at night. I did that and found tons of speckled kings, copperheads, garter snakes and prarie kingsnakes. Also I found one that had just been hit but I couldn't identify it. I bagged it although I knew it was going to die. My friend said it was a green phase prarie kingsnake. If you looked close, you could see the prarie kingsnake coloration although in the picture you can't see it. I've attaached a pic of that snake.

Karen

I also saw lots of lizards. PIc attached.
Karen

And a watersnake. Not the best picture.

Karen

My best find was a baby vulture in the nest.

I was hiking and I heard two very large birds flapping while flying away. I saw a big dead tree with their baby who was close to fledging. I walked over to the tree and he was standing on the highest point which was only about 14' off the ground and he was growling and it sounded just like my African Greys when they growl.

He was holding his wings out, I guess to scare me, and I snapped a picture and for the first time in 20 years the shutter in my camera jammed. I whacked it and the shutter closed. I took another pic of him trying to look big and the stupid thing jammed again. Another whack. The bird then went down into the tree and stuck his head out and that's when I snapped this picture.

My camera has never done that and hasn't done it since. I shoot at least a roll every single week. I don't know what happened that time.

Karen

Nice finds karen!! Where in Misouri are you located?

Southern MO in Fredericktown.

Karen

My best find, for beginner's luck this season was in November - a baby Panamint, and 2 sidewinders here in Mojave, CA

i guess this seasons best catch for me was a mud snake . it was about 2-3 feet long of beautifull shimmering black . after a week or two i realized 2 things 1) <after doing research> it ate salamanders and newts , which i could not afford to feed it and more importantly 2) its jaw was broken . that might have been why it ws so docile when i caught it . it was perpetually burried in the dirt int he cage and i noticed the jaw was being pushed open further and further with dirt . so i decided to let it go back to nature and i let it go again