I had the great opportunity to meet up with several milk head friends and herp for syspila last weekend. They are still there herping - I wish I was still there.
Anyway, here is what we found Saturday and Sunday - Dell, Cole, Jeff and John will have to fill in the rest of the week for you later on.
Dell Despain, Cole Grover, Jeff Hardwick and I stayed with Dell's friend Cody at his ranch in Fall River Kansas. Cody was an excellent host and had a great ranch.
Here is, from left to right, Jeff, Dell, Cole (doing a curtsey) and me at the ranch
So on Saturday morning we meet up with John Fraser and his buddy Mike Puckett to do some herping. John and Mike take us to a spot to flip a metal sign and BAM! first herp of the day - a really nice speckled king
Here is Cody, Dell, Cole and John checking out the king
Then we moved on to the next spot - a nice road cut that produced a sweet prairie king that Jeff caught
Here is the road cut that produced the prairie king, ringnecks, flat headed snakes, etc. It also produced scorpions!!
After all that rock flippin', Dell got hungry...
John then takes us to another spot where we have some success. First up was a great plains skink that I caught...I was shocked how big they are!
Then the fun began as Cody caught a nice speckled king!
Then another larger one that I caught. This one put on a nice display!
Then Dell I believe landed this young prairie king with a nice meal in its belly
Here is a habitat shot of where these were found
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But this day was far from over. John and Mike took us to another spot.
On the first rock Dell, flipped, he found a milk.
I didn't get a picture of it because I was too busy finding this little milk. My first syspila ever.
Dell, Jeff and Cole photographing my find
But there weren't only milks here, Dell landed this large black rat. I was shocked how much color there was on its sides. The ones I find in NC are solid black generally
Cole was impressed with it also. I think it was a lifer for those two guys
Not long after Dell found the rat, Cody and I flipped this little milk - it was a screamer!
Shortly after we found that milk we found a glass lizard. Pretty cool I think.
Moving on to the next spot, Mike caught this big bull snake and it did a great display for us.
Here is Cole with it
That wrapped up day 1. Three milks, seven or eight speckled kings, 3 prairie kings and too many ringnecks, flat heads and skinks to count!
On day 2, John and Mike took us up to Perry Lake.
The fun started when we hit this one spot that had plenty of debris on the ground. I think we found 5 black rats all under or near this roof laying on the ground. It was impressive to see all these big snakes together in one spot
Here is me, Jeff and Cole with black rats
While we were off playing with black rats, Dell landed this monster syspila - the largest one that was found while I was there.
Several other milks were found at this spot. Here is one Cole found
We caught about 4 milks within 20 or so yards of each other almost simultaneously so we put them togehter for a group shot. Pretty cool shot if you ask me.
Jeff also found this racer here. Pretty cool. I am not used to green racers - they are black in NC!
This was a great trip for me. I got to meet many fellow milk heads that I have talked with on the phone for a few years and I got to catch red milks, kingsnakes and other great herps.
John Fraser was a wealth of herping knowledge and I learned so much from him. He also showed us his collection which blew me away. He's got a killer collection of kings and milks that had us drooling.
Stay tuned for more (and likely better) pictures from this trip when Jeff, Cole and Dell get back home. John took some pictures too so I hope he has time to post something.
Dave
Looks like you had a great trip my friend. Not too often you get to herp with guys wearing dress shirts and smoking cigars!!! LOL. Awesome animals too. I love KS specks, and you showed why!! The racers are trip too. When I saw my first out there I did not know what to think being that the east coast ones are jet black and as mean as satan himself.
