I made a visit to the in-laws this weekend and got away for some herping.  Didnt find much, but a few things of interest...
On friday night as we are driving in, I found a fairly large osage copperhead on the road...turns out, its a county record...so whoever thought they were gonna check that one off the list on this fall's field trip, too bad!  Then on saturday, I found a few ringnecks, a box turtle, some nerodia (never caught one...man they can be fast).  The coolest thing by far, I found this old scrap metal pile of junk.  Since there was no "no tresspassing" signs...I went to poking around...about the third thing I flipped...an old car's fuel tank I think, I found an odd looking little salamander.  Now I know what a spotted sally and an ozark zigzag look like, but this was neither.  I grabbed it up and back to the truck I went to consult my field guides.  Turns out, it was quite the rare bird.  Its a marbled salamander(ambystoma opacum).  He was short and stubby and real fat...and dare i say it, kinda cute.  Not only is it a new county record...it has to be added to the county record, as few, if any examples of this species have ever been recorded this far north.  Anyway, it was pretty cool for me, I am usually the 'bad news bears' or herping.