Despite not being able to go on the AHS trip last weekend, I was able to do some herping last week in preparation for participating in the U of A's portion of Springfest.  Basically, a buddy of mine went out to some local spots to pick up some relatively common species to show the people.  I was most interested in having 1) some of the more commonly seen species, like ringnecks and black rats, and 2) some copperhead "mimics".

First find of the day (second piece of tin I flipped), was this husky female speckled king.

She had a food bolus and I assumed she had been eating the plentiful rodents of the area.  This was confirmed when she deposited 2 rather large hairy loads in my snake bag.  She also had a fair amount of scarring on the muzzel- I guess from either hibernation sores or rodent wrestling.

Later on, found about 15 ringnecks- kept 3 for springfest, and 1 female brown snake.

My buddy also scared up a fat black racer- the second one we've seen at this location.  Their abundance is not surprising, but compared to the ones I saw over the last 4 years  I was in Florida, these racers are HUGE, fat monsters that must live on a ton of rodents (or they eat the million or so ringnecks at this particular spot).

Still no black rats, but the racer, ringnecks, and brown were acceptable for my "common" species, and the king was good because I could show what people would want to have around to possibly eat copperheads and other venomous species.  We also picked up a fence lizard and five-line skink for fun.

On to another site for Nerodia...

Unfortunately, overcast skies made Nerodia spotting difficult.  Only saw 2 at this lake and both were in the water before we could grab them.  Did see a number of sliders trying to get as much sun as they could.

Most of our looking here was appearing to be a waste of time before we saw this beauty:

Unidentified Eumeces sp.  It was way too small to be a broad-head, but it could have been a coal skink (wish wish).  Unfortunately, it darted under the log before we could catch it.

Walking back to the truck, I had to parallel the road for a ways.  Not 10 steps into this walk, I nearly stepped on the find of my year so far.

Prairie king!  Big one too- close to 4 feet in length.  This was in wooded habitat so I was real surprised to see him there, and his pattern threw me off for a minute:  very dull with 4 barely-distinguishable longitudinal stripes.  At first I thought I was back in the carolinas and had found an intergrade black/yellow ratsnake!  One way or another, this is my first live calligaster.

So, maybe we didn't get a Nerodia, but at least we had something sort of resembling a copperhead (barely).  Springfest was a success and, despite the cold weather and excessive handling stress on the little snakes, we didn't lose anyone.  All will be returned to their little homes this weekend.  Hopefully the prairie king won't try to cross the road before looking both ways!

Van