Reptile & Amphibian Forums

On Memorial Day weekend I made a quick trip to the Sandhill Prairies of Illinois. My hope was to find my first Bullsnake, but luck was not with me.
The rainy conditions seemed to drive snakes to places other than artifical cover. The following is what I found.

The first snake was this young Blue Racer - it was still sporting some spots as well as very cool blue coloration.

Abandoned hog farm where the snake was found.

Fowlers Toad

Sandhills habitat

Eastern Milk Snake

Purple Flowers

This pile of boards behind a Shell gas station on a busy road had a couple of hidden treasures.

Plains Garter Snake - lifer.

Midland Brown Snake

Wood Duckling

Tin Fields

Racerunner

Blue Racer

Crazy Cricket

Not a bad weekend, though I wish the weather was better.

Tim

Third Eye

Those are great quality pictures. What kind of camera do you use?
Justin

Excellent post Tim!

That close-up of the adult Blue Racer is especially fantastic!

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

The milk and radix make that trip complete. Be persistent and you will eventually run into a "Kankakee" bull.
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger salamander
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
1 G rosea
1 Haplo minax
1 Brachy angustum
1 Brachy sabulosum
1 Brachy vagans
1 Cent. hentzi scorp

Wow, great finds and photos. Thanks!
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Nice milk. Some of them out there actually look decent into adulthood.

I usually expect better numbers out of that area, but I actually got completely skunked on snakes my first trip up there about 6 years ago. I went out to that area this past Friday and turned up 10 bulls, 3 milks, 2 fox snakes, 1 hognose, and a few each of garters, brown snakes, and racers. It was the first sunny day after a series of rainy days, which may explain the high number of bulls (double my previous record).