Hi All,

After reading longtime friend Brandon Decaveles May 9 post here on Missouri Finds, I had had contacted him & told him I needed a MO fix myself, since I hadnt been to MO in years to get any herp photos. Leaving my house in Fredonia just before 5am, Saturday morning, I rolled into Brandons driveway in KS City just past 7:30am. We loaded my camera & gear into Brandons car & we were soon headed East, first destination would be Johnson county. We had seen several 3-Toed Box turtles crossing roads, as we got into Johnson county & we stopped & got a quick shot of this one:





We soon run into longtime friend & legend Brian Hubbs, who was in the area, taking numerous herp photos, as he would observe them. We all 3 stopped at a area & soon Brian found this bright 12" Red milksnake from under a large rock & we all 3 got some photos of it:





Heading on to other areas, we spot an old shingle pile along the side of a road & Brian starts raking thru it & soon I spot this 7" Northern Red-bellied Snake, that was moving away from Brians pillaging, my first ever observed red-bellied snake in the wild:





After 2-3 hours here, we headed West, back into Jackson county, for I had always wanted to see & search a MO Cedar Glade type habitat & Brandon knew of one that he said we should search. Cedar Glades in MO are not very easy to see from roads & it takes dedication & long walks to ever even find many of them. Brandon had done his homework well & after parking, we walked thru many trees, scary growths of poison ivy & ticks that didnt let our sprayed pants of deep-woods off scare them a bit, and then the woods broke open into the beautiful cedar glade, that had much prickly pear in bloom:







Heres a shot of Brandon, standing on a rock that he said almost always had a milksnake under it.





He was right on the money, for I lifted the rock & sure enough, a big, 30" in the blue syspila was laying there:





Here s shot Brandon took of me at that special rock that milksnakes seemed to like:





Brian was also searching here with us & he soon had found a nice 36" Black ratsnake, that he just had to molest a bit:









After some serious tick removal, when we got back to the cars, we headed back to Brandons, where I said my good byes to both friends & headed back South for home. Thanks Brandon for a great day of herping, habitats & friendship. Beware everyone, for Hubbs is everywhere, amassing more photos & documentation of herps currently, than anyone else I know of, keep up the good work Brian......John

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