Southern Illinois curtain call Pt. 1

Over the years, I've spent a lot of days and nights camping and hiking in the LaRue-Pine Hills region of southern Illinois.  It's a truly incredible place no matter what sort of nature you're into.  In particular, its herptilian diversity is astounding, especially when you consider the fact that it's in Illinois and not Texas or Florida.  For a few species of herps, it's one of the only places in the state they are found.  It's also one of the only places in the state where you can feasibly observe three of the state's four venomous snakes at once.  It is an unforgettable experience and visiting will leave you building a strong sense of place for the area.

I've decided that this year and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be taking a break from my routine in that I will not be returning to the region for my "camping/traveling herping trips".  Though there is still so much to see and learn about the area, I have a strong desire to explore other parts of the country.  In the past, I summarized my trips to southern Illinois here, but around the time my daughter was born almost four years ago, I had little time to report back on my experiences there.  In between the spring of 2016 and now, I visited southern Illinois three times (April 2018, October 2018, October 2019).  I'll share some highlights of those trips here.

April 2018

 This large slab of limestone was brilliantly adorned with colorful mosses and lichens.

 Dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne), a common sighting in the LaRue area.

Shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia).

 I spent a lot of time with Chad on that trip.  He's a good dude.

 Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) growing from a steep Bailey limestone glade.

 Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous) sunning just outside its den.

A young red milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum syspila).

 A northern zigzag salamander (Plethodon dorsalis), probably the most underrated salamander in the region.  This one was found late at night along a dry creekbed.

 A long-tailed salamander (Eurycea longicauda).

Blanchard's cricket frog (Acris blanchardi).

 A short side trip to a sand prairie just across the Mississippi River in Missouri.

 Believe it or not, this was not the first time I've herped an Etch-A-Sketch.

 Yeah.

 Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora)

 Here is a rat snake (Pantherophis spiloides) emerging from a cavity at the base of a large tree.  It was early in the morning, and the air temperature had yet to break 50 degrees.

 Cypress-tupelo swamp.

 A crayfish burrow engineered right through dense, hard-packed rock and gravel.

 Mole salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum).

 Marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum).

 While hiking through a swamp, Chad and I accidentally flushed a large wild turkey from its nest.  It scared the living daylights out of me.  Here is her nest.

 A beautiful, defensive racer (Coluber constrictor) on a glade.

This patch of blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna) took my breath away.  I has never before seen these, and all of a sudden there they are, growing right along the parking lot.