Missouri: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYvb55 ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZLke8 ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCyr84c ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
Eastern Trip: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6IeRo3 ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
After the February trip to California for salamanders and snakes that I detailed in "Batrachoseps or Bust" some time ago, I came home to a frigid late February and early March in Missouri, but still had some solid finds of favorite species throughout the spring here in Southwest Missouri, mostly with friends. Some highlights from late March and April:
On a rainy night, the Dark-sided Salamanders at a local park were everywhere as usual for damp spring weather:
Dark-sided Salamander, Greene County, MO
At a local "never fails" cave, the Cave Salamanders and Western Slimies were also in abundance as per usual in March:
Cave Salamander, Greene County, MO
Western Slimy Salamander, Greene County, MO
The last weekend in March got us some 65-70 degree weather, and the first Midwest reptile of 2024 was, inevitably, a Prairie Lizard:
A couple weeks into April, the snakes started popping on the glades of the SW Missouri Ozarks:
Eastern Coachwhip, SW Missouri
Speckled Kingsnake, SW Missouri
Red Milksnake, SW Missouri
In early May, a friend of mine who settled not far from where we went to college got married outside of Lexington, VA, and I found myself driving through West Virginia in the middle of the night. The logical thing to do when driving through West Virginia on a May night (even an unusually chilly one) is, of course, to brave the banjos and hunt Green Salamanders at 2am. My saintly girlfriend allowed me to do so for about an hour in very pretty country, shining sandstone bluffs for gummy lizards. This effort turned up four greens and one Plethodon wehrlei, which tragically disappeared back into the rockface (I do not have a picture of the original species after the late taxonomic split that made the Dixie Caverns, Blacksburg, and Yellow-spotted Woodland Salamanders distinct species). Although I was mad at myself for missing the Wehrle's, a gorgeous Green Salamander (this is now the fourth state where I have seen greens, along with Alabama, Kentucky, and North Carolina!) is a good consolation prize, and I now have a solid location to return for Wehrle's.
Green Salamander, West Virginia
The wedding was a blast, as was touring my friend's horse farm, and my girlfriend was blown away by the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley as we cruised down out of the Alleghenies past House Mountain on I-64, the towering blue ridge barely visible in the distance as we listened to bluegrass. Also, if you are ever in Lexington or passing through as part of a salamander hunt, breakfast at "Legendary Eats" is great. The Sasquatch breakfast sandwich is highly recommended. After the wedding, we visited Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, hiked a bit in Charlottesville after a stop at Cookout (a must-have BBQ fast food chain when in Georgia, the Carolinas, or Virginia), and started the trek back south and west toward Tennessee with a raft of Gordon Lightfoot playing as well as a dose of Chloe's music taste as well.
The next day we hit the Smokies, because, why not? I can't see any lifers there except E. junaluska at this point, but it's some of easiest, safest, and most fun herping anywhere in the United States. There are certain trails where every log has a salamander under it, and after a Dolly Parton-filled ride through Gatlinburg and up US 441, we were at such a site high in the mountains. In about an hour, we saw 44 salamanders of 4 species (19 "Cherokee Mountain Dusky"--formerly Ocoee, 14 Red-cheeked, 8 Southern Pigmy, 4 Blue Ridge Spring). Chloe flipped our first and most attractive Blue Ridge Spring in the otherworldly moss-covered spruce-fir domain.
Blue Ridge Spring Salamander, GSMNP
Red-cheeked Salamander, GSMNP
Southern Pigmy Salamander, GSMNP
After that, we headed down low to a spot for red salamanders, and I did see one, but it was a dull larval specimen and not really worth posting. A Canadian birder couple looked somewhat rattled as we passed them, as they had just seen a bear. It wasn't enough to deter them from birding though! Heading west, we stopped in with my good friend in Nashville to crash and have what he promised was amazing Japanese food. It was, although the Hibachi chef went a little over the top in his antics....
The next morning, we headed NW from Nashville to the property of a biology professor I met last year by complete happenstance in Deep Southern Illinois to see if anything was out under his boards and tarps and to help another herper from Nebraska try to get her lifer siren in the ponds on his property. It was a blast. I got my lifer Eastern Black Kingsnake, Southern Black Racers, a surprise Eastern Tiger Salamander (in mid-May????), and a gaggle of Plain-bellied Watersnakes and newts.
Eastern Black Kingsnake, juvenile, Southern Illinois
Eastern Tiger Salamander, Southern Illinois
Southern Black Racer, Southern Illinois (thanks to our Nebraska herper for holding it for this shot)
With that, we said goodbye to the Professor and started back west, with 48 of 50 state license plates seen (only North Dakota and Hawaii eluded us), some great memories involving both people and herps, and called it a trip.
So ended the spring herping season, but early summer saw me back in action on the Kansas plains with a friend from church, which was a blast. That will be the subject of the next blog post. Thanks for reading, and happy herping all!