Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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

Very nice post John.Those are cool snakes.I like the high saddles on the MO milks.
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"He's down in the basement staring at his snakes " My Wife

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Doug L

Awesome post John! Looks like you guys had a great time herping. That was a nice milk you flipped there.

Dave
DNS Reptiles - Milk Snakes

Great post, John!........that rock of Brandon's is just unbelievable man!. That juvenile syspila was a REAL looker!

Too funny that you guy's ran into Brian Hubbs "pillaging" around in the same freakin' place..HAHAA!!..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

"some are just born to troll and roll"

Very nice. Enjoyed the post, John.

Dennis

Sweet post, Hubbs is alledgedly working on a Milk Snake book. You guys found a lot of cool stuff!

Tim

I just saw this on FHF - one hell of a weekend, huh?! Good post, buddy. I got your message, too. I'm glad you like it!

Talk soon.
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-Cole

John Im glad that we were succesfull given the harsh conditions we were faced with, dry and hot are a bad combination when you want to see milks. Although with 3 milk finding experts together Im surprised we didn't see more. We probably would have if we would have had a bit more time, I'm going to check the locations we didn't get to sometime this week, and will follow up with a big spring post on fhf after I get to those areas. Heres some more pics I wish I would of got some pics of the holbrooki we found but Brian said he will email them to me.

Heres another shot of the lil syspila Hubbs found(under the rock I helped him lift lol)

I saw this and thought about eating it...

Heres some more shots of John's first ever Jackson co Mo syspila, I think this would of been a very nice looking snake had it not been in the blue

Somehow after letting Brian sleep on my couch I ended up buying his books and adding them to my other favorites, I have read through some of them and so far I thoroughly enjoy them!

Again John Im glad you had a good time it was a great day hanging out with some of my mentors, I was glad to be able to show you guys around like you both have done for me in the past. Next spring we will have to do it again but have it more planed out and during the peak