I observed the Bullsnakes for a while and could only think about how I hadn't found anything today. I inspected the snakes and sure enough there was one male and one female. He told us how he had found both under the same piece of tin. Apparently he had gotten the worst of a Bullsnake's temper. Soon, Matt walked over with 2 medium sized Bullsnakes in his blood streaked hands. Doug, Sam, Tristan and I took one side of the field while Matt and Shannon took the other. We decided to move to our next spot, a field with plenty of tin and boards to look under. Even when we teamed up to try and catch one, it was near impossible. On our way back, Doug and Tristan spotted a few more Glass Lizards in the same place the first one had been seen. One was a juvenile and its patterns were a lot more red than the adult's. Meanwhile on the other side of the prairie, Matt, Sam and Tristan had each found another Milksnake. But my luck just wasn't very good today, all I found was a White Footed Mouse. I immediately went for the debris and started looking under everything.
The next stretch had a large sand prairie with piles of debris along the edges. On that note, we released the other 2 snakes and pressed on. The snake climbed high up into the tree and we knew that it would be impossible to get it down. While Tristan was holding the Blue Racer, it somehow got from his shoulder onto the branch of a tree. I felt kind of bad that I hadn't found anything yet but it was still amazing to see these 3 beautiful snakes all in one place. We now had 3 of the most iconic snakes of Kankakee right in front of us. It turned out his luck was a lot better than mine because he came back with good sized Blue Racer, while I came back empty handed. When Matt was done getting his photos, he pressed on in the same direction that I was headed. Now people were taking turns photographing both snakes. Little did I know that we'd soon be seeing a lot more on the Bullsnake front. The only Bullsnake I had seen before this, was the small juvenile we had found here in the Fall. This was Sam's first Bullsnake so he was pretty thrilled. He had a 4 foot Bullsnake by the tail! I helped him wrangle the snake into a more secure position and we carried it back to where everyone was still photographing the Milksnake. Soon, I heard Sam yelling and I ran over.
Sam came in for a quick look but continued looking under objects for more snakes. Everyone came over and started taking pictures of the timid little snake. Tristan grabbed it and yelled "Doug! Milk!" Apparently Doug had never seen a Milksnake before, so it was his goal to see one on this trip. Matt grabbed a large chunk and lifted it off to find a pretty Milksnake pop out. I started working on the edges while Matt and Tristan went straight for the center. Tristan called for help flipping a pile of roof shingles. But that all changed when we hit the next section. We carried on, finding more Fowler's Toads and the odd American Toad, but still no snakes. Soon, Matt found a Racerunner, yet another species we had encountered many times before. Even in the Fall, the Glass Lizard managed to escape, consequently I had never actually seen one up close. We all headed over but he had lost it in the thick grass. A little while later, Doug yelled that he had found a Glass Lizard. Next, Tristan found a Gray Tree Frog, another species we had seen a lot of last Fall. We had seen plenty of these the last time we had come too. The first animal found was a Fowler's Toad found by Doug. The first section we saw had a ton of really good boards and cover objects but the rain from the previous night had made the ground wet and unsuitable for snakes. We were going to hit all the spots we hit last Fall and look for the snakes that make Kankakee famous.
Doug, Tristan, Sam and I drove to Kankakee, where we met Matt, his wife Shannon and their 2 year old daughter.
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