Amy and I took a Labor Day trip to Gibbs Country aka Garden of the Gods in southern Illinois. Our plan was to get away for a day and just enjoy the wilderness....but as fate would have it, flat rocks would be flipped and checked one by one.
Along the way we found some beautiful flowers and several very interesting fungi.
A purple mushroom that Amy found.
And some very unusual fungus I stumbled upon.
There were plenty of toad stools, so what else would you expect? This little guy was about the size of a dime.
There were plenty of biting insects and spiders.....and me not being a fan of arachnids, I couldn't help snapping a shot of this one.
So we trekked our way from Pounds Hollow to Rim Rock. This has always been a place for quite a bit of reptile and amphibian activity.
You can see the habitat is perfect for a number of species including this little Eastern Fence Lizard.
There were also quite a few small ground skinks and broad head skinks to catch a glimpse of.....forget about trying to catch them in this terrain. Having all of these lizards around could also mean one other thing.......food supply.
I just happened to be looking for a small skink when I noticed something I had not seen in over 10 years.....A RED MILKSNAKE!!!!
As tempting as it was to be selfish and keep this little guy, I just inspected him for a few minutes and let him crawl back into his crack......which leads me to the next chapter. A photo opportunity that is once in a lifetime.
wait, that's not the right crack I'm talking about. Anyway....Amy noticed as I was returning a rock to it's original spot, there was a small snake a couple of feet to my right. Well, to our surprise.....more her's than mine, were four baby copperheads resting together.
It was like something you only see in National Geographic. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Two of my favorite native reptiles in one day and a photo opportunity like this one! After gleaming for a few minutes and snapping 1000 pictures, we decided to move along and let them be.
Further down the path we inspected a large rock that I had also found an adult copperhead under several years ago. Underneath were several shed skins from baby copperheads, and shed from an adult red milk, and just a few feet away we noticed this beauty....
A nice size adult copperhead. It looked to be around 30" or so and didn't seem to mind me snapping it's pic one bit.......from a few feet away.
In all my years of herping, this was the most exciting day yet. Seeing my two favorite native snakes and getting to share the experience with my fiancee'.
Thanks for looking.
Brandon Osborne
