Orrin Higgin's Farm

Since late 2017 my family and I have lived in a small, isolated subdivision in Wayne Township.  At first glance, there isn't much to speak about in regard to the neighborhood.  It is an early-90s development, complete with cul de sacs and unimaginative street names (each named for a bird and not all are native to the region - way to go on that one).  The community itself was christened "Meadow Wood", quite possibly the most generic and uninspired name in the history of the universe.  It's also kind of confusing because meadows are what they are because there are no trees, and therefore no wood.  But it must have sounded great to the developers who built the subdivision and to home shoppers then and now.  Safe and naturey.  But I digress.

Walking the curvy streets of Meadow Wood, there doesn't appear to be much if any history whatsoever.  But a sharp eye and a penchant for dusty old books gave rise to this post which I'm sure absolutely no one will care about since it is niche as hell.  I'm gonna do it anyway.

Meadow Wood, and the land surrounding it, was once a gently rolling landscape of tallgrass prairie and savanna.  There are indications that the water table was quite high at one point and that tiling in the mid-19th century effectively dried most of the area for growing crops.  Some of the local drain tiles have been removed, mostly across the road where a seven hundred-plus acre preserve sits.  That preserve is comprised of restored prairie, marsh, and fen habitat, with a one-and-a-half-mile length of river (West Branch of the DuPage River) and two reclaimed quarries (Deep Quarry Lake and Bass Lake).

Starting in the 1830s, European settlers from the East, primarily Germans, migrated toward northern Illinois for new opportunities.  One of these settlers was Orrin Higgins.  Born in Vermont in 1818, he spent the majority of his life in Ohio before continuing west and landing in Wayne Township in 1840.    He married Betsy Irish in 1845 and together they had four children - Laura, Rosa, Job, and Anna ("Belle").  Their farm was where Meadow Wood sits today.

In 1882, the Higgins property enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame when it was discovered that a rich bounty of fossil fuels might be had there.  

Suffice it to say, "the Junction" (today, West Chicago) never did become a grand health resort or large coal/oil mining town, but we can boast some seriously good tacos and horchata.

Orrin passed away in 1887 at the age of 67, and Betsy followed seven years later in 1894.  Orrin, his wife Betsy, and their oldest daughter Laura were interred at Oakwood Cemetery in West Chicago.

While Orrin claimed land in Wayne Township, a plat map from 1851 does not plot homesteads, only saw mills, post offices, and school houses.  It also spells out landowners, but fails to delineate property boundaries.  The blue X in the map below is roughly where the Higgins' homestead stood.  

Most interesting is that the road which leads to Meadow Wood today, Klein Road, is not featured on this map.  Fair Oaks Road is on this map, running north and south east of the river.  This makes me wonder how the Higgins family accessed their farm.  It seems highly unlikely that access to the farm was via Fair Oaks Road, but it's possible.  This map may not be purely accurate.  There is no indication that Fair Oaks Road ever crossed the river - twice - so I don't know what's up with that.

              

Whomever drew the plat map in 1874 did a much more thorough job.  Properties are clearly drawn out and now we see the locations of farmsteads.  In short, there were both changes to the landscape between 1851 and 1874, AND several errors I've found.  For example, the West Branch of the DuPage River is erroneously labeled as the East Branch, which is actually about six and a half miles east.  So the maps are imperfect - bear that in mind.

1874

In the 1874 map above, the farmstead of Orrin Higgins is clearly labeled near left-center.  There are three black squares (directly over "Orrin") which indicate a house and two barns or other substantial outbuildings. The series of dashes around the buildings indicate an orchard.  There are about two larger blotches which may indicate trees.  There is a large swath of timber just south of the Higgins property, and many of those trees still exist today.

And here is an aerial photo from 1939.  By this time, the farm is owned by the Schramer family.  Visible is a dense cluster of trees, an orchard, a barn, and several other smaller buildings (the house is there, hidden by the shadows cast by a westerly sun, just north of the driveway).  This dense cluster appears well-established and probably contains some pre-settlement trees.  Most if not all of the scattered trees to the immediate south are naturally occurring and predate European settlement.  

Also visible here is the old property line that separated Orrin Higgin's holdings from that of R. H. Reed (see 1874 map).  Today, this line separates the West Branch Forest Preserve (north) from the Old Wayne Golf Club (south).  

Also, I quit being a cheapskate criminal and just paid for this image.  Grainy screenshots cluttered with watermarks are so tacky.

I don't know how or when the Higgins home met its fate, but a replacement was constructed in 1912.  It is a beautiful brick farmhouse and thankfully it was spared when all of the other associated farm infrastructure was demolished sometime between 1988 and 1993. For most of the twentieth century, the farm and associated buildings belonged to the Schramers.  Theodore W Schramer and his wife Pearl lived in the brick house for many years.  Theodore was the great-grandson of Johann Schramer, one of the earliest residents of DuPage County.  Among other things, he was president of the Benjamin School District board of directors.

This sign hangs inside Benjamin Middle School.  Two years later (in 1965), Theodore died at the age of fifty.

The old Higgins farm - at this point in time, the Schramer farm - was purchased by Russell Builders around 1990.  In 1992, construction began on a new subdivision known as Meadow Wood. 

Fortunately, Russell has the foresight to keep the Schramer farmhouse intact and preserve most of the old growth trees on the property, but as usual, they demolished the old barn and all other outbuildings.

This was taken in November of 1993.  Courtesy of neighbor Barry Mehrman.  

Another shot of new houses being built, courtesy of a former owner of one of these (unknown).  1993.

The Schramer farmhouse as it appears today.

This cul de sac is the exact location of the old barn that was demolished prior to redevelopment by Russell Builders.

The "graceful oaks", as described by Russell, are still around and truly bring a sense of timelessness and perseverance.  Most are well over a century old, and could be upward of two hundred years old.  I am very glad they are still around.  To see what they have over the years...

A gorgeous shagbark hickory and a bur oak.  The sidewalk respectfully winds around the trunk of the hickory.

A large bur oak at the south entrance to Meadow Wood (with a smaller hickory in the foreground).

Another beautiful bur oak standing in front of what was the Russell office (now just another home).

A group of old bur oaks and shagbark hickories.  The Schramer farmhouse tucked away behind trees on the right.

Another view of some of the historic trees on a gentle rise.

My daughter Lumen standing under some huge oaks with the Schramer home in the background.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome

 John Cebula had a good point.

Many years ago, the retired college professor and amateur herpetologist would respond, in a somewhat discouraging manner, to field notes I had broadcast on social media.  At least that's how I saw it at the time.  I was committed to seeking reptiles and amphibians in the northwest corner of DuPage County and then share my findings.  If I had observed, for example, two fox snakes, two smooth green snakes, a milk snake, and a handful of common garters, I was on cloud nine.  But John's response was invariably a more sophisticated version of "that's cute".  He made sure to talk about all the herps he'd find back in the 80s while assisting Dan Ludwig & company with a county herp survey.

"Back in those days, we found smooth green snakes by the dozen.  I found a Blanding's turtle at the intersection of North Avenue and IL Rt. 59.  Fox snakes weren't uncommon as they are today."

Mentally, I dismissed these remarks.  John was a very nice guy, but really, with all of the natural areas around, how much could have really changed in nearly forty years?

Wisdom comes with time.  It would be years before I realized the fallacious nature of that old perspective I had been holding tight to.  Experience taught me that I had suffered a bad case of shifting baseline syndrome.

I mistakenly saw the 2017 landscape as THE baseline by which I gauged how well - or poor - nature was doing in suburbia.  That's the year I left the big city and settled in a semi-rural patch of suburbia 30 miles to the west.  The further west I drove on North Ave (IL. Rt. 64), the less developed the land was.  There were still some old homesteads, barns, and other features reminiscent of yesteryear and I just assumed that since they had been there this long, they're not going anywhere.

But since 2017, I've borne witness to big changes.  Some of the old homesteads had outstayed their welcome and were torn down to make room for detention basins and car washes.  Weedy lots that held a lot of biodiversity potential have been purchased and developed.  The southwest corner of Roosevelt Road and Winfield Road in Winfield, once a mature woodland directly across the street from Cantigny, was completely cleared to make room for a gas station.  It was clear to me that there was no such thing as permanence.  What originally appeared to me as a "finished piece" was in fact changing the whole time.  It made me wonder about the changes I wasn't aware of that had occurred in the area 5, 10, 20 years before.

Forty years ago, there were many, many acres of undeveloped land in my area.  In those days, John reveled in the richness of snake species and numbers, maybe so much that even he couldn't imagine a better time and place.  I enter the picture, working with what's available, and what I see as a good day would have been pathetic in John's day.  

When I read naturalist's accounts about the 19th century Illinois landscape, it is abundantly clear that we are living in a whole different era.  The ease at which Robert Kennicott procured Blanding's turtles in and around Glenview in the 1850s is remarkable (they are state-endangered today).  He found so many Graham's crayfish snakes within walking distance of his home that his pal Spencer Baird, at the Smithsonian, told him to stop sending specimens - he had more than enough.  And the Kirtland's snakes were probably everywhere nice, wet patches of prairie existed.  Kennicott of course is known for his discovery of the species in 1855 and likely didn't have to walk far from his home at the Grove to find it.   In 1892, Harrison Garman acknowledged the dramatic reduction of Kirtland's snakes in Illinois within his own lifetime.  He described the species as "formerly common in the north half of the State; rare at present" and added "A handsome snake, which ten years ago was not uncommon along prairie brooks...tiling, ditching, and cultivation of the soil have destroyed its haunts and nearly exterminated it."  Of course, in the decades since, with the implementation of mechanized agricultural practices, Kirtland's snakes are even more rare.  I'm confident I would have had a veritable field day counting Kirtland's snakes in 1892, and today a "good" population might occur on a scrap of habitat an acre in size and nowhere else beyond its artificial borders for many miles.

Entire landscapes have transformed into something unrecognizable, mostly due to human encroachment.  Most of the time, these are not good transformations.  H.S. Pepoon documented Chicago-area landscapes for his 1927 book "Flora of the Chicago Region".  These landscapes look almost pristine even though Europeans had been in the area for a century previous.  

Take this photograph, for example.  It is a view from Edgebrook Forest Preserve, located on the northwest side of Chicago.  It is beautiful. The caption states, "The trees are white ash".  Judging by the width of the path, these trees are mature and quite large.  Beside some (presumably native) shrubs, the woodland appears to be open and free of brush.  The lush herbaceous vegetation appears healthy; ample sunshine is reaching the duff layer.

I do not currently have an updated view available from this same or similar perspective, but I can assure you that these woods no longer look like this.  Most if not all of these ash trees are gone, victims of the emerald ash borer which has wreaked havoc on the regions' ashes.  In their places are mostly successional vegetation, including young green ash trees but also maples, buckthorn, honeysuckle, and various others.  Some large oaks remain alongside young oaks that have been planted in recent years.  The forest structure has undergone a substantial overhaul, and not for the better.

Now, check this out.  I took this photo at Rubio Woods south of 143rd Street back in 2014.  This is what a lot of the region's woodlands look like today.  A layperson might walk by this and feel a connection to nature.  It's green, it's lush.  The song of a raucous blue jay sounds from somewhere overhead.  All is good in the world.

But ecologists are screaming inside because there is lots wrong here.  I can go on and on about it (invasive species, fire suppression, etc etc) but my point is, little or no familiarity with what we consider to be our baseline for what a given ecosystem is supposed to look like can be dangerous.  

Henry Cowles was a pioneer ecologist who studied vegetative succession in the Chicago area

A skeptical college professor (from the same institution that had once had Dr. Robert Betz on staff, ironically) would ask, "From what period of the past should we be restoring land to?  A hundred years ago?  Two hundred?  A thousand?  THE ICE AGE??  Should we re-introduce wolves, bears, and mountain lions?"  A complicated problem to solve, actually.  No, we are well past the point of releasing large and potentially dangerous predators into our little scraps of greenspaces.  And no, we cannot change the trajectory of the Chicago River back to its original course (nor can we restore it back into a sluggish little stream).  No, we cannot bring back the Skokie Marsh, the Winnebago Swamp, or the Grand Kankakee Marsh.  Even our best efforts at restoring prairie create something of a shadow of the real thing; intact soil horizons and hydrology are key and these have too often been interrupted.  The simple answer to that question is, we can do the best we can - within reason - with what we know from history.

John Cebula's complaints over not not seeing enough snakes in 2025 doesn't mean he's bad at finding snakes.  It means he knows that once time, there were a lot more.  And that maybe one day, there won't be any at all.

History matters.

Ozarks: Snubbed by Rain

I was back down in the southern Missouri Ozarks recently to witness the fall migration of the ringed salamander.  I headed down on rather short notice, seeing as rain was in the forecast that particular evening.  When I arrived in St. Louis around 10:00 PM, I met up with my Missouri friend Pete and drove to a promising location.  The problem was that the rain never came.  The low pressure system veered off course to the south, leaving us dry as a bone.  Without rain in the picture, we had to change our plans.

The next morning we headed several hours southwest to a well-hidden limestone glade Pete had only visited once prior.  We had to walk through a dense prairie to reach the wood line, beyond which was a glade interspersed with stunted oaks and other thick vegetation.  The area was stunningly beautiful.  

The herping itself was painfully slow.  Our first snake was a common garter (Thamnophis sirtalis).

One of several ringneck snakes (Diadophis punctatus) found in a wooded area

A large adult western ribbon (Thamnophis proximus) Pete found

One of several rough earth snakes (Virginia striatula).  Not far from this snake, Pete and I watched a young eastern collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris) dart from under a rock and into a tangled mess of thorns and rock.

A decent-sized eastern coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum) darted into a hollow within this outcrop.  Pete and I needed a break anyway, so we sat and waited at least thirty minutes to see if the snake would come back out.  It did not.

When we got back to the car, I must have taken my hat off and placed it on the car while chugging water.  Turns out that I didn't remember to take it back until we were about forty-five minutes back toward St. Louis.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am dead serious about my hats.  I don't have many, for several reasons but most importantly because I have a colossal head.  Most hats don't fit me comfortably.  And the hat I left there in that tiny dirt pull-over down some rural road in the Ozarks happened to be my "uncle hat".  It was a simple, dark blue cap with a mesh back and snap adjustment.  It was a gas station find at least twenty years ago.  And that hat has topped my head throughout the world, much to the mild embarrassment of my family due to its absolutely ragged condition.  

I could have insisted we go back to get it, but I opted not to.  Because, well, life moves on.

Toads of Meadow Wood

There are aspects of my neighborhood that are characteristic of modern suburban communities elsewhere.  Curvilinear streets, lush green lawns, and mulched young parkway trees.  There are residents walking their dogs and riding bicycles.  Children play in the cul-de-sacs.  For a lot of people, picturesque.  Safe.  Ideal.

But lurking in the shadows like trolls under a bridge are the toads.  Squat, rotund little beasts that appear out of place in such a dignified setting.  Seeing one is a matter of chance.  On summer days, they are occasionally exhumed from their earthy sanctums by well-intentioned gardeners.  And at night - especially humid nights - they may be seen hopping across a driveway or sidewalk while hunting for food.  But I'd venture that most people hardly ever see toads.  At least here, where I live, in a quiet, prim and proper corner of suburbia.

The toad knows its way around the kitchen.  Here, they originate in the wetlands across the quiet, two-lane road near my house.  The most substantial and likely only permanent marsh is a little over 1500 feet away.  The toads breed here each spring, their songs filling the night air with the most elegant and harmonious trill.  Eggs are laid in long strands and hatch quickly into tiny black larvae.  By mid-summer, the larvae metamorphose into tiny, frail toadlets.  And these toadlets quickly disperse away from the water to higher ground, often across the quiet two-lane road and into the neighborhood.

Few of the toadlets actually make it.  Most succumb to the elements, to predation, and to human-related factors such as vehicles and lawnmowers.  Those lucky enough to avoid these challenges grow quickly and in a matter of a month can quintuple their size, no longer dark and frail but now resembling a smaller version of a mature toad.

The toadlets do not know what's in store for them in Meadow Wood.  They just know it's higher ground.  Most will never know what nature is.  Instead, they will find an alternate reality that ironically is well-suited to their lifestyles.

As it turns out, a suburban neighborhood has a lot to offer to toads.  Mulched gardens for burrowing, lots of hiding places in the form of home exterior features, and maybe most importantly, an absence of snakes.  In the eight years I've lived here, I've never found a single gartersnake in my neighborhood.  They are more at home down in the prairie and wetlands below where they enjoy a variety and abundance of prey and have no need to leave.

Toads are common in the Chicago region and I've been guilty of passing them up in the past.  But living here has opened my eyes to how ingenious they are.  I truly appreciate them and value each sighting (although I stopped photographing and Herpmapping every single one years ago).

A male toad trying to attract a female.  This was taken at the marsh across the street.  

This toad spent the better part of the summer of 2018 living under our front stoop.  And each night it would roost under a horizontal length of downspout.  Protected from above and in the path of bugs tracing the perimeter of the porch.

Another porch toad engaged in Operation Bug Interception.

One of countless toads I see in our overgrown side yard.

This toad is likely a female but her dad bod game is strong.

This is a screen grab from a now infamous video where Lumen, clearly under the weather and spewing snot every which way, gently picks up a toad, laughs maniacally, and shouts, "Daddy, I got the code!".

A very large toad.

Lumen holding the very large toad.  This was a particularly hot and dry summer and as I recall, this was one of only a few toads seen the entire summer.

The toads are quite variable in appearance.  This one is a bit more orange.

I watched this toad for some time as it sat under the outdoor light on the garage.  It had learned that insects congregate at the lights and often fall to the ground.  Here, it sizes up a small insect.

This was One-Eyed Willy.  Willy lived directly across the street from me, each night appearing at the edge of the sidewalk.  Each night on my walk, I'd check on Willy and like clockwork, he was practically in the same spot.

Long live the toads of Meadow Wood!

Unpopular Opinions: Rapidfire

 1)  Those tasked with disseminating information about local nature & natural history in 2025 - nature center staff, interpretive naturalists, and especially social media content creators - are very often poorly informed on their topics (especially herps).  Their keen ability to engage with the public belies a lack of accurate knowledge or experience.  Why is this a problem?  Because the public is largely ignorant of these kinds of things.  And when they visit a nature center, or subscribe to a conservation organization's social media account, they trust that whatever they are being told is factual.  

In fact, those qualified to educate others are the people who work in dusty museum basements.  The ones that obsess over their work.  The ones that are passionate.  Alas, these people are not suited for educating in today's rapid-fire world of interpretive Instagram posts backed by hip hop music.  

2)  The abundance of spent mylar balloons littering the woods is a major distraction to actual serious environmental issues such as stream bank erosion and invasive species.

Americans have been raised to adulthood not knowing what a healthy woodland looks like, or what a healthy river looks like.  We see a forest preserve full of plants and a stream running through it and nod in approval.  In reality, our rivers take on far too much runoff and sedimentation devastates biodiversity.  

Our woodlands have been infested with nonnative honeysuckle and buckthorn for over a century.  Our marshes have been infested with Phragmites, reed canary grass, and many more for decades.  We have some historical context of what constitutes a healthy ecosystem but most are ignorant about it. 

Of course, if you were to ask me what the biggest contributor to environmental collapse is, it's consumerism.  But that's not a novel viewpoint.  Just an inconvenient one.

3)  Herpetology podcasts - most of them are awful.  I spend a fair deal of time in my car and I often enjoy listening to podcasts.  There are a handful of good herp-themed podcasts out there (Snake Talk, So Much Pingle, Colubrid & Colubrid Radio), but most are insufferable.  

Here's some ideas for improvement:  Learn to edit out long, drawn out periods of silence and bouts of connection issues.  Introduce your guests or allow them to introduce themselves.  Not everyone is in your circle...and by the way, the whole idea of podcasters interviewing podcasters over and over and over is annoying and imparts a cliquey vibe.  Certainly there are more people out there into this stuff?  Finally, if you expect subscriptions and sponsors, sound enthusiastic.  Some of these long-time hosts sound straight-up burnt out.  Take a break and come back in a month or a year or never.

4)  Not everyone needs to convert their entire lawns to vegetable gardens or tallgrass prairies.  Don't guilt-trip others for having turf grass, especially if you also have turf grass.  There are a LOT of hypocrites out there with nothing else better to do with their time.

5)  Domestic cats belong indoors.  Period.  Yes, they kill a substantial amount of wildlife.  No, they are not a one-to-one replacement for predators we've eradicated.  If you are fine with cats exposed to predation, disease, vehicles, and harsh elements, you are objectively careless.

6) The politicization of conservation will be the downfall of conservation just as the politicization of nearly anything solves nothing.  

7)  Americans are very tribalistic.  We want validation from others in our groups (even when we are wrong) and will go to great lengths for it, often looking very stupid in the process.  

8)  If you purchase a product solely because the packaging sports some sort of little green leaf logo indicating "environmental friendliness", you are most likely misled. The little green leaf means nothing.  Maybe it used to, but once marketing firms found that the green leaf bolsters sales from the crunchy sector, companies began applying it to anything and everything.  Yesterday, I saw a package of balloons with the logo.  We fall for that stuff a lot.  

(A graphic of two hands cupping soil and a little seedling also work in this manner.)

This means nothing

9)  Speaking of greenwashing, people don't know how to think critically when faced with a greenwashing campaign.  It shouldn't matter that the 24-case of bottled water you bought contains "up to" ANY percent of plants.  It's still going to be mostly all plastic.

10)  And speaking of plastic, there's a really, really good chance that the plastic you honorably place into your recycling bin isn't recycled.  

11)  Snakes don't chase people.  That's actually a fact, regardless of what you've heard.  

It's funny how stories of snakes chasing have slowed with the advent of smart phone technology, kind of like ghost sightings, flying saucers, bigfoot...you get the picture.

12)  Ready for this one?  Deli-cuppers make the most cringe field herpers.  Yes, I said it.  

Too many (not all) plod about, complaining of the weather and bugs and mud and overall being a total drag.  They get tired easily because they are pale, out of shape, and not used to rigorous physical activity.  They are one small step above gamers.

I appreciate that they want to experience the thrills of a naturalist's quest, but I can usually predict the outcome, and it's almost never a good one.

13)  Breeding ball pythons is not conservation.  

14)  Nature blogs are irrelevant.  Yes, even this one.  YouTube and Tik Tok are king.  Few want to write anymore and certainly fewer want to read.  I really like YouTube - a lot - but it and other video platforms have taken a huge share of the self-expression industry, leaving people like me to type away at our desks, the echoes of our keystrokes lost in a bombardment of competing video personalities.

UPDATE (8/27/25):  I stand corrected.  My friend Mike (who invented herp blogging and needs no introduction) recently returned to blogging after a three-year hiatus.  And he left quite an impression.  See his blog here.

15)  Cicadas are beautiful, intriguing animals and nothing anyone can say will ever change that.

(There are a few dueling cicadas calling outside my office window at the moment.)

16)  Tradition is the living faith of the dead, and traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.  - Jaroslav Pelikan

tHaNk yOu fOr CoMiNg tO mY tEd TaLk

Slightly Off-Topic: Cornflake the Corn Snake

 I often credit the plains garter snake for my love of snakes, and that largely holds true.  But there was one particular snake that expanded my understanding of snakes and represented a gateway to the multitude of snakes that lived beyond the streets of Chicago.  I think it's about time to memorialize this animal.

As usual, I like to provide some backstory.  In the early nineties, I befriended a neighborhood boy who had recently moved to Chicago from northwestern Georgia.  He was an outdoors type, like I was, but came from a place very different from the city and his range of outdoors activities far surpassed mine.  In his bedroom stood a chest of drawers topped by a ten-gallon aquarium, and in that aquarium lived what he called an "Egyptian ratsnake" (I would much later come to understand that this was a diadem ratsnake (Spalerosophis diadema).  It was often coiled tightly on the green astroturf, next to its hot rock.  Every time I'd go to my friend's house, I would gravitate toward this snake.  I spent a lot of time looking at and holding it.  Then a few months later, it was gone and in its place was a hatchling California kingsnake.  That one didn't last long for one reason or another, and it was swiftly replaced by an adult "Florida corn snake".

I was extremely fascinated by this corn snake.  It was about four feet long and clad in earthy oranges and browns with a black and white checkerboard belly.  In the absence of a hide, it too spent its days coiled atop the Astroturf next to the hot rock.  And I don't believe a day went by when I didn't take it out to handle it.  The only attention it received from my friend was during feeding time.  My friend fed it live mice, and the snake would almost immediately strike and constrict the mouse until it was dead.  Then it swallowed the mouse whole.  This was all new to me, since the garters at my house were fed worms and minnows and simply grabbed and swallowed them alive.

The neighborhood kids mostly hated him

Me pretending to be strangled 

I know this probably sounds weird to many people, but I noticed that the corn snake not only felt different than the garters, but it smelled different too.  It's tough to describe, but it's a clean smell.  I call it the "corn snake smell".  I notice that all corn snakes smell exactly the same - even slightly distinct from other members of its genus such as grey ratsnakes.  

After about a year or two, my friend's family returned to Georgia.  My friend gifted me the corn snake before he left, knowing it would be in good hands.  This was shortly after my parents separated, so the timing was serendipitous.  My dad never allowed any snakes in the house - not even my garters.  Those had to be kept in terrariums on our patio table, underneath an awning.  Now I had a legit collection - garters and a corn snake - in my modest bedroom (thanks, mom).  

Keeping a four-foot snake in a twenty-inch enclosure didn't feel right.  One day, my mom drove me to Pet Supplies Plus where she bought me a forty gallon "breeder" terrarium.  I also selected a large bag of fir bark chips to replace the lousy and unsightly artificial turf.  To this day, I can never smell this kind of bark and not be whisked away to my first corn snake enclosure.  The huge new enclosure took up every inch of desk space, giving me another reason to avoid doing my homework.

Sometimes we called him "Cornflake the corn snake", but I don't think he ever had an official name (I wasn't into naming herps).  He was with me the first time I ever presented about snakes to an audience, when I was in the eighth grade.  I remember having to get permission from my principal to bring a snake into the school, and I was happy when permission was granted.  The principal stood by the door while I held the snake and talked to my class; the talk was so well-received that I was asked to do the same presentation for two other grades.  Skip class and talk about snakes?  A no-brainer.

My family moved to a new house in the late summer of 1996, and therefore so did my corn snake (and a few others I had acquired since).  In 1997, I bought a second corn snake, an adult amelanistic female, with the intent on breeding the snakes.  I was a few years deep into Reptiles magazine, had devoured every single book on snakes I could find, and felt like I was ready to take this next step.  After some cycling and conditioning, I introduced my male corn snake to the female in the spring of 1998, and a couple of months later, had eggs which in turn hatched later that summer.  There is an interesting story related to that process, but at the risk of deviating too far from the main subject, I digress.  

Cornflake's offspring (with the mother)

Around the time my corn snake became a father, he began showing signs of failing health.  He became increasingly lethargic and accepted food only sporadically, losing weight.  Looking back, I should have addressed his condition with more urgency, but I was pretty enamored with this beautiful batch of baby corn snakes for the first time in my life, as well as getting the adult female back in shape after oviposition.  When I see photos of him from 1998, I'm overcome with a feeling of guilt, even though his condition may have been untreatable.  He died in early 1999.

In the coming years, I'd work with countless other snakes, even though my primary interests revolved around the natural history of wild snakes (and still do).  But the lasting effects of owning and caring for my first corn snake are undeniable.  I hope, somewhere out there, his progeny are inspiring other kids the way he inspired me.

Slightly Off-Topic: Milksnake in the Alley

Once upon a time, I found a milksnake in my alley.  Well, if you've read enough of this blog over the years, you'll know that that doesn't sound all that unusual.  But this story is different.  It's a short story about an unlikely predicament - and the value of being in the right place at the right time.

July 12, 2017 started as a normal Wednesday.  I was at work when shortly before noon, I received a DM from someone on the Jefferson Park Neighborhood Association Facebook page (to clarify, there isn't, or wasn't, an actual association - at least not like the weird, self-important ones out here in the far western burbs.  I think it was just a loose conglomerate of minor community leaders and other loud people).  I was told that a Jefferson Park resident had made a most unusual discovery - a snake that appeared to be pinned under a garbage can in the alley.  The snake was red and white, which didn't make sense to me.  So I asked for the resident to take a photo.

The photo that was sent to me shortly afterward really had me perplexed.  It looked like an amelanistic milksnake of Mexican origin, maybe a Nelson's milksnake.  These are somewhat popular in the exotic pet trade.  How did the snake end up in an alley, stuck under a garbage can?

I did what any self-respecting snake advocate would do.  I left work (in the Hermosa community) on my lunch break and high-tailed it to Jefferson Park.  En route, an absolute gusher of a downpour slowed my progress as traffic turned bumper to bumper along Milwaukee Avenue.  I'm talking buckets.  

The rain was letting up by the time I arrived to the scene.  The homeowner, a nice lady, came out to meet me and hand me an empty shoebox.  She then pointed me in the direction of the snake.  She refused to get within 10 feet of the scene and told me that getting those photos earlier took all of the courage she had.  I approached the garbage can, and watched in horror as the snake, still firmly pinned, struggled to surface under a steadily rushing torrent of stormwater as it made its way toward the drain.  

I wasted no time in lifting the full and VERY heavy garbage can up and collecting the snake.  It was definitely an amelanistic milksnake, either nelsoni or a bastardized mutt as some of these captive-produced morphs tend to be.  Skinny, limp, and lethargic, I didn't hold much hope for this one.  I put it in the shoebox, thanked the homeowner, and went home to put the snake into a darker and more secure enclosure it may quietly expire in.  I figured the internal injuries were devastating enough to render the snake doomed.  Then I returned to work and didn't think much about it.

When I arrived home several hours later, the snake was still alive, so I set it up in a small glass terrarium.  After a few days, I offered it food, which it eventually accepted.  I was still skeptical that it was a success story because part of its body had been smashed flat for at least two hours and I couldn't imagine that its organs would function properly.  But they did.  It accepted food each subsequent feeding (and pooped normally), though its feeding habit was odd.  I found that the snake would only eat if teased by the food item to the point of spastic throws of its body and manic zoomies around its enclosure for a minute, after which it would strike defensively and then hork down the food.

Someone else from the association reached out and asked me to speak to their meeting about the snake, and I used this as an opportunity to expand on the native snakes of Chicago.  A reporter from the Chicago Northwest Side Press was present and interviewed me after my presentation for an article that appeared on the front page on October 4 (slow news week I guess).  It's kind of ironic that I was referred to as a "lifelong Jefferson Park resident", when by the time the article was published, we were in the process of moving to our current home out in northwest DuPage County.

               

Shortly after the snake's rescue

Eight years later, the snake is still with us, living out its rather luxurious life along with a few other snakes in the house. Rehoming didn't make much sense - the story is too wild.

The Clayoquot Sound: Thamnophis in the Mist

 As I sit here to begin drafting my summary of a trip to Vancouver Island (British Columbia) less than 20 hours after returning, it is a steady ninety degrees outside here in northwestern DuPage County.  That's about forty degrees warmer than what was experienced as we hunkered down along the southern periphery of the Clayoquot Sound near Tofino over the previous week.  So as I re-adjust to changing conditions, I'll try my best to accurately recall the feelings and emotions that I felt as we traveled throughout this amazing place.

Long ago, I became fascinated by the island's rugged beauty and indigenous roots.  It's not really on a lot of people's "must-see" lists, but it's been on mine for some time.  Naturally, it's a place of boreal landscapes, picturesque river valleys and biodiverse coastal waters.  It is depauperate in herpetofauna, but the species that do make their homes there have found ways to tough out the region's unforgiving climate.  In particular, the island's four snake species - three garters and one sharp-tailed snake - have proven to impress with their abilities to not only survive but thrive in the cool and often cloudy and windy environment.  

I really wanted to find a northwestern garter snake (Thamnophis ordinoides) while there.  I had never seen one in the wild and its subtle beauty usually stops me in my tracks.  Yes - I also like the gaudy paintjobs of other western garters, but I'm weird in that I REALLY like snakes that most others consider ugly or drab.  It's unrelated to my support for the underdogs.  It's that I can stare at a brown or gray snake for a long time and admire it for what it is, never once considering it "dull".  

This was a family vacation, so most of my herping would be incidental.  And that was fine by me, since the forests were captivating and the indigenous influence is alive and strong.  Three groups of First Nations people live throughout the sound.  Near Tofino, it is the Tla-o-qui-aht people, who have been in the region for thousands of years.  Many operate businesses in Tofino, such as tour companies (foreshadowing).  I learned much about the history of the Tla-o-qui-aht and viewed everything through the lens of a visitor from afar privileged to even step foot here.

We flew into Victoria from Seattle and drove nearly five hours to our cabin near Tofino.  The only reasonable way to do this is by taking the Alberni Highway (BC-4), which provides stunning views of the mountains and rivers.  We stopped at the Kennedy River Rest Stop to take in the views of the crystal clear, sparkling clean & frigid waters of the river.  We also found our first of many salmonberry plants here.  These attractive berries are abundant and variable in taste; they range from remarkably delicious to worthy of spitting out, regardless of ripeness.  So eating these was always an adventure. 

Kennedy River at the rest stop

We stayed in a small but very cozy cabin situated on Mackenzie Beach.  As fortune would have it, there was a beautiful sunset over the horizon.  And because it was the summer solstice, the sun was not in a big rush to call it quits that evening.  

The following day was spent hiking mostly.  We started off hiking the popular and easy Rainforest Trail located between Tofino and Ucluelet.  The trail showcases secondary forest leading into primary forest and provides good explanations on the differences.  There were quite a few tourists here, which always leads to my "meh" rating on the overall experience, but I'd still highly recommend this place as a classroom for Temperate Rainforests 101.

My intrepid family

Western bunchberry is abundant

So is false lily of the valley

Don't ask

We worked our way to other trails, many of which led to desolate beaches.  At one, Lumen pointed out a large sea lion from afar, and the closer we approached, the more obvious it was that the sea lion was dead.  It was a large male, fresh, that appeared to have simply left the water, made its way up toward the woodline, and expired.  

Not far from the dead sea lion was a small cliff overlooking some tide pools.  I knew from some research that both the Puget Sound garter (Thamnophis sirtalis "pickeringii") and the northwestern garter have been found in this vicinity, along the rocks and up on the vegetated cliff.  Conditions seemed conducive for garter snake activity - it was sunny and about as warm as it gets this time of year (around 56 degrees F).  Flipping stuff is a worthless exercise.  You need a sharp set of eyes and a soft step to spot them in the open.  I ascended the cliff, peering into the cracks on the way up.  When I reached the top, I brushed the salty reside off and then got to searching.  Making my way toward the center of this cliff, I noticed that the vegetation transitioned from short grass to tall, impenetrable shrubs.  And in a flash, I saw what I thought was a very dark snake uncoil and bolt into the deeper shrubs.  They were here!  That very familiar rush of adrenaline shot through my body.  Moments later, a second snake, this time clearly a sirtalis, shot off surprisingly fast in the same direction, and I decided to rush for it.  But I quickly regretted that decision, because as it turned out, the thick layer of shrubs concealed a sharp drop in the cliff, and I collapsed and fell about three feet into a layer of glossy leaves and brambles.  It didn't feel good, but it didn't feel too bad either because of the adrenaline coursing through my body.  I once again brushed myself off, uttered a "damn it...", and glanced all around me in the unlikely case one of the snakes was still there.  

It wasn't.

But I had made first contact with some of the island's resident snakes and I was poised to keep trying.  I wasn't going to get banged up and potentially lose my dignity for nothing.

THE clifftop

A totem pole erected by members of the First Nations 

Lumen collected twenty-one banana slugs along a path that traces the beach.

The dad life has done a number on me.  I need to return after I lose twenty pounds so that I can fit into this cave

We visited a high quality bog as well.  

We saw only two other bog trail walkers, one of whom pointed out these tiny, delicate round-leaved sundews.  I had to break out the actual camera to capture these details.

This monument in Tofino is the Weeping Cedar Woman, carved from a large wind-fallen western red cedar in 1984.  It depicts an indigenous woman holding her hand out as if to say "Stop", and her other hand pointing to the ground.  This was created as part of a protest against logging in the area.  She is pointing to her land and demanding the logging cease.  She is crying long tears, perhaps because she has seen what mass deforestation can do to an area and does not want that for her home.  Battles between logging companies and environmentalists would continue for decades - they still do - and fortunately, the community of Tofino as well as the various sub-groups of First Nations people continue to fight to preserve the land.

Our next stop was the town of Ucluelet, approximately thirty minutes from Tofino.  We visited the small but fun Ucluelet Aquarium, which has multiple touch tanks kids and kids at heart love.  Then we did more hiking, including the entirety of the Ucluelet Lighthouse Loop.

See my dream house?

As a Midwesterner, I was kind of taken aback to find these brackish pools teeming with tadpoles I believe to have been Pseudacris regilla.  These pools are really just less salty tidepools (I know the water is salty because I, uh, tasted it) right above the marine zone.  Throughout the rainforests, there are surprisingly few pools of water for these frogs to deposit eggs in.  So they take what they get.  I'd be interested in seeing what the salinity levels are in these ocean-side pools and then seeing what the tolerance level is for regilla (wait, I found this paper).

One of our goals for the trip was to see the spectacular ochre sea stars.  Clad in orange, purple, or some combination of the two, these echinoderms were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to benthic macroinvertebrates.  In all my life, I've never seen such a diversity as what I saw on Vancouver Island.

With a northern kelp crab that gave me a whopper of a pinch shortly before this photo was taken

Aimee found this gumboot chiton, aka the "wandering meatloaf"

Other notable invertebrates found:  Nuttall's cockle, rock-barnacles, giant pacific octopus, Dungeness crabs, red rock crabs, pacific oysters, butter clams, green falsejingles, rough keyhole limpets, and who knows how many other crabs, bivalves, anemones, tube worms ("feather dusters") and soft corals.  

A more typical, cool & foggy day on the coast

There is a plane crash site in the rainforest we wanted to see.  The aircraft crashed on February 12, 1945, and is surprisingly intact if not a bit decorated.  The hike to it was the first of several "tough" hikes.

I did search for northern red-legged frogs (Rana aurora) wherever habitat was suitable, but found none.

Aimee wanted to go whale-watching, so I booked a tour through one of the local indigenous-operated companies.  And let me tell you this - this is the way to go.  Our guide's knowledge of the animals of the region was unsurpassed.  You can train someone to lead tours, but selecting a service led by someone whose family line runs thousands of years in the area and whose understanding of the region is second to none TRULY makes a difference.  We signed up to see gray whales, and we did see them - multiple, as well as orcas hunting in a pod (these are rarely spotted in the area and the guide was giddy), Dall's porpoises, Stellar sea lions, hundreds of sea otters, and various birds including oystercatchers.  I didn't take many photos because this really isn't a great time for that.  But this was absolutely a highlight of the trip and I urge anyone to book a similar activity when in the area.  

Two otters

Stellar sea lions (alive, thankfully)

After the tour, the sun poked out for a short while and I wanted to try to find my northwestern garter snake.  A park near our cabin seemed like a good choice - its gravel paths were wide enough to allow sunlight to hit the ground in various areas, and that's key.  These snakes generally stay out of the shaded, wet forests for prolonged periods of time because they need sun to thermoregulate.  My family was wiped out from that day's activities, yet I selfishly got them to come hike so that I might find Thamnophis ordinoides.  

After maybe thirty or forty five minutes of searching without a sighting, I thought that maybe the temperature was too low (low fifties) or that not enough sun was coming through the dense cloud layer.  But as we turned a corner, where one path split into two, I barely caught a glimpse of a sirtalis fly off its marginally warm log in a tiny bit of sunlight and escape into a dense woodpile.  I couldn't live with myself if I didn't make a valiant attempt at finding it, so I threw myself to the ground and began disarticulating the woodpile until I realized that it was in vain.  

"Damn it!", I uttered, frustrated.

But they were there.  We continued walking and were near the parking lot when I looked off the path and saw a sirtalis perfectly coiled right out in the open, again on a marginally warm log in a tiny bit of sunlight.  I wasted no time in charging toward the snake and catching it before it knew what was happening.

I stood up and took a deep breath.  And smiled big.  I had never worked so hard for a freakin' garter snake in my LIFE.  And even though it wasn't the species I was seeking and really wanted to find, it was a snake nonetheless.  I've had notoriously bad luck finding and catching snakes in other countries.  Lizards?  Frogs?  No problem.  Snakes, eh, usually a problem for me.

But anyway, the snake.  

Now, my craving for ordinoides was at an all-time high.  They had to be out there somewhere.  The only things stopping me were a rapidly approaching deadline and a cool, overcast weather forecast for the remainder of our stay near Tofino.  In just a couple of days we'd be packing up and leaving for downtown Victoria, where we were to spend two nights before flying home.  If this snake was all I'd find on Vancouver Island, that would be cool.  But, you know.

The next morning, we hopped on a water taxi and were on our way to Meares Island.  This island was the subject of major controversy during the early nineties.  Once again, it was the loggers vs. the people.  Specifically, the indigenous people who lived in the area and in the small town of Opitsat on the island.  Ultimately, the island was protected from logging and today is contains some of Vancouver Island's most expansive virgin rainforests.  We were in awe of the scope of this island and the sheer number and size of its western red cedars.  We hiked the island for around four hours.

Back in Tofino, we returned to the same park I found the sirtalis in the day before.  Yes, I was hungry.

After some time at the park's beach, we headed back to the parking lot, where I found another sirtalis as well as a fresh shed skin from what looked to be from sirtalis.

Don't let that stoic look fool you. I was thrilled to find my second sirtalis.  But this was our final day in Tofino.  We were set to leave the following morning for the city.  I would not attain my goal of finding ordinoides on this trip, and I wasn't sure when I'd be back on the island.  C'est la vie, as they say.

The drive to Victoria was uneventful.  We all loved the Tofino area and the beauty and tranquility of Clayoquot Sound and were a bit sad to leave.  Our hotel in Victoria was located downtown with good views of the water.  We walked around and visited some bookstores and had dinner.  Looking out our seventh floor window that evening, at the city lights and cool fog rolling in from the bay, I felt very far removed from the simplistic lifestyle we had just spent nearly a week living.  Off to bed.

I woke up rather late the following morning - our last day before flying out - to abundant sunshine pouring through the hotel window.  Well, THAT was not in the forecast.  Lying in bed, I began to feel like I had a sickness, and the only cure would be to go outside during the likely short bout of sun to search downtown Victoria for Thamnophis ordinoides.  It sounded ludicrous.  You know, a century ago they would have put people like me in an asylum.

Aimee was busy, so I took Lumen down with me to walk the concrete jungle.  She wanted to look for crabs along the trash-strewn shore of the bay, and I promised her that we would, but that we first needed to look for snakes, which had to have sounded ridiculous even to her.  I carefully scanned the manicured planted areas on hotel and city properties.  Tall grassy areas adjacent to military memorials.  What the hell was I doing?

Then, as the clouds quickly began to block the sun, there it was.  Resting in an open coil on some fresh mulch near some shrubs, a northwestern garter snake.  I gasped and then ran to catch it.  Before I grasped the enormity of the situation, another snake appeared nearby and I caught that one too.  Then another!  And another!  Within about 30 seconds I had FIVE wriggling ordinoides in my hands!  There were likely more but five was PLENTY.  I was ecstatic.  Lumen doesn't know a northwestern garter snake in downtown Victoria from a plains garter snake in Chicago so she was relatively indifferent about the spectacle that was happening in front of her.

"Cool, dad.   Can we go look for crabs now?"

A few photos of one of the snakes were taken, and the snakes were all released to continue their metropolitan lives.  I did promise Lumen we'd go mudlarking and crab-searching so we did just that.  

I should have known all along that this was how it would go down.  I grew up catching garter snakes in Chicago.  I know the way.  

Thamnophis ordinoides, in all its glory.  Buzzer beater!

Oh yeah, there were also a bunch of these introduced wall lizards.  BUT LOOK AT THAT SNAKE.

Tell me, normie, what makes YOU excited?