Southern Illinois curtain call Pt. 3

My October 2019 trip to southern Illinois was probably the most social trip I've been on.  Even though I'm generally a lone ranger type of guy, getting out into the field with like-minded folks can really be a game changer when to comes to productivity.  And when the camaraderie is high, nothing can beat that.

I woke up at home very early on Thursday and was out the door by 2:00 AM.  I had plans to meet with Peter at 10:00 in Missouri, but I still had to drive to my campsite and pitch the tent.  I allowed myself very little wiggle room.  I arrived at the campsite around 8:15 and threw my tent together.  Then I left for our rendezvous point near Benton and arrived at 10:00 sharp.  After a FULL day of field herping the Ozarks (about two hours west), I headed back to camp in the pitch dark night and decided to abandon the idea of building a campfire, as I had been awake and either driving or hiking for over twenty straight hours.  I slept well that night.

Also on that trip, I spent a good deal of time with Nathan (who had arrived late the following night) and Chad and his family.  We hiked up and down rocky glades, power line cuts, swamps, roadsides, and everywhere in between.  Somewhere in between, I spent nearly an entire day to myself on a personal mission - to find the lost Bost cabin.

Here are a few select shots, all but one courtesy of my iPhone.

 The aftermath of herping a long-abandoned and dilapidated homestead in the Missouri Bootheel with Peter.  Took a good 45 minutes to pull all of these things out.

Peter and I hiked down a rocky canyon to a railroad embankment strewn with old railroad ties and other debris.  It turned out to be a really good site.  Here is Peter with a large western rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus).

 Peter spotted this tiny - TINY - neonate western pygmy rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius streckeri).  It was so small it fit under the lens cap to my DSLR camera (which I only pulled out once on the entire trip - I was lazy - for this animal).  It really was a stunning little gem.

 We hiked along these railroad tracks because, frankly, it's easier than the alternative.

 A lot of really cool animals were found in the Ozarks,  Here is a striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus) I found underneath a flat rock on a rocky hillside.

A young racer (Coluber constrictor) found nearby.

 A view near the spot I caught the little racer.  I could sit here all day.

 On the way back to the car, we walked this dusty road and saw a familiar green rope in the distance...

 ...of course it was a rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus) that I moved out of harms way.

 Back at the rendezvous point, we walked a sand prairie for a while until it got dark.

 The next morning, I ventured out to find the Bost cabin.  I ran into a few friends along the way.  This is an eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina).

 Big Muddy River.

 A green frog (Rana clamitans) missing a forelimb.  Seemed to get around just fine.

 I observed this cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous) for about half an hour as it tried on different crayfish burrows for size.  It's the time of year when a lot of herps begin thinking ahead toward hibernation.

 A view of the cypress tupelo swamp.

 After hiking in the rain for about an hour, I finally found the mysterious Bost cabin.  This cabin was built in the 1850s as part of the tiny hamlet known as Scanlin Spur.  The hamlet no longer exists and this is all that remains of a time when humans attempted to clear and farm Boss Island.  You can enter and explore this cabin.  I did, and it was very dark and musty.  Definitely a bucket list item checked off.

 A nearby wooded hillside strewn with large boulders.

 If you don't know you're in the tiny town of Vienna, you may think that turning right will take you to two different brands of hot dogs.

 A powerline cut that Nathan, Chad, his wife, son, and I visited.  Previously this proved to be a site rich in herp species and numbers; however, the site had been recently mostly destroyed by bulldozers.  We found very little here.  This is a shot of a portion the bulldozer couldn't reach.

 At a nearby swamp complex, we found four caudates - marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum), central newts (Notophthalmus viridescens), small-mouth salamanders (Ambystoma texanum) and mole salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum).

 This is the same swampy ditch where Chad and I had accidentally spooked the wild turkey the previous year.  

 A truly massive oak.

 This is the gas station in Grand Tower, Illinois.  There is nothing grand about Grand Tower or its gas station.  One ancient pump and a dimly lit, sketchy little general store.  I LOVE it.

 On my last night, Nathan and I took the bluff faces of snake road to look for cave salamanders (Eurycea lucifuga).  At the mercy of our cheap flashlights, we hiked in pitch blackness while someone - or something - was either taunting us in the distance or just making a commotion.  Unsettling.  But the salamanders made it worth it.

Southern Illinois curtain call Pt. 2

I decided, rather spontaneously, to spend a couple of nights in southern Illinois in October of 2018.  Looking back, I do not regret that trip, but of all the trips I've made there, this one was the most forgettable.  It was very cold, very wet, and overall pretty glum.  The conditions were so unfavorable, in fact, that I ended up seeking shelter in a few small-town antique (read: junque) stores while driving in between cold downpours, and ultimately decided to cut the trip one night short.

Here are some highlights from that trip.

 Probably the most thrilling find of the entire trip - this gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor) that was found in-situ atop my campsite marker.  

 Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous)...

 I ended up burning a lot of calories hiking the extensive wilderness area adjacent to the campground.

 Pine Hills Campground was actually at one time a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp called Camp Hutchins.  It was created during the early 1930s.  During the fall of 1941, nagging issues related to inadequate electrical service led to low morale among the men in the camp and the camp was ultimately abandoned the following year.  But even though all of the former structures are long gone and forgotten, the results of the work carried out by the men during the 1930s are still seen today.  All of the backroads in that area were built by the CCC residents.  Hiking in the woods east of the campground today, you'll find lots of evidence of the old CCC camp, including LOTS of discarded bottles and other trash.  This "Kwik-Lite" lighter fluid can dates to the 1930s.

The top of a high quality Illinois glade.

 I thought it was ironic that this Amish man tied his horse to a utility pole.

Neither of the two nights spent in a soggy tent sat well with me that trip.

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.  

Unpopular Opinions #1: Steve Irwin

An idea that's been running through my head lately is to share some of my opinions as they relate to herpetology.  Many of these opinions are what I'd consider to be unpopular.  They are not held by most herpetologists or reptile enthusiasts and would probably be met with scorn if presented in a group setting.  It is my intention to explain why I hold these opinions, and to also clarify that they are exactly what they are - opinions.  In no way am I attempting to create divisiveness - I'm only justifying my thoughts and feeling toward certain things.

Let's start with Steve Irwin, the spastic, drastic, ultra-enthusiastic Australian zookeeper-turned television star of the late 90s-mid 2000s.  Known as the "Crocodile Hunter", he was famous for his exuberance over crocodiles and other reptiles, his repeated jumping atop crocodiles, his tailing of venomous snakes, and his catchphrase, "Crikey!".  The guy was unstoppable.  He loved being in front of the camera and having his film crew follow him into treacherous situations involving dangerous animals.  His wife Terri, an American naturalist who was the yin to his yang, often accompanied him on his adventures.  She was calm and deliberate while Steve was high-strung and impulsive.  It all made for incredibly entertaining television.

There was no Steve Irwin prior to Steve Irwin.  Nature- or animal-based television shows were of a more organized, ecocentric viewpoint.  Wild America, hosted by Marty Stouffer, was a staple on PBS.  NOVA and Nature were other popular science-based program on PBS.  In 1996, Steve Irwin smashed through the walls of your living room like the Kool-Aid man.  With knees bent and fists closed tightly, he shouted, "Wooo-hoo!".  Sporting khaki shorts and a matching shirt, he was constantly poised to tackle any crocodile that he came across.  Steve changed animal programming forever, and to this day our expectation of what a worthy animal-themed television program should be remains the same.  Before you knew it, he had competition.  Austin Stevens, Jeff Corwin, Nigel Marven, Brady Barr, and even the highly respected academic herpetologist Mark O'Shea burst upon the scene to capitalize on this new kind of show - a show with a rock star host who interacted directly with the animals in risky situations.

As a result of these high-octane programs, the relatively tame programs featuring mostly animals in their natural habitat went extinct.  They were seen as boring to the younger generation.  Marty Stouffer disappeared into obscurity and only reruns of some of the other shows are broadcast late at night when everyone is sleeping.  Though a recent surge in popularity of pure nature programming has wiggled its way to the masses in the form of Planet Earth and other similar cinematic-style documentaries, these are not the programs you often see cited as being inspiring to young, prospective biologists.

As far as Steve Irwin and The Crocodile Hunter, well, they didn't have a big impact on my life.  By the time Steve Irwin became famous and was given his own show, I was in high school and beyond the imprinting stage.  I watched some of the episodes.  I liked some of it, but a lot of it seemed like thinly-veiled conservation. To me, the show was clearly egocentric and not ecocentric.  The show WAS Steve Irwin.  The animals were props.  Watching the show, a young kid would not learn a whole lot about the natural history of species as much as, say, the tremendous bite force of a saltwater crocodile.  Clearly, the show was developed and marketed as "extreme entertainment".  Not necessarily a bad thing, but, it did largely displace pure nature programming, which in my opinion, was a problem.

Today, I hear a lot of people name Steve Irwin as their inspiration for why they developed an interest in herpetology.  Steve's untimely and tragic death in 2006 did nothing to temper his fan's enthusiasm.  You can still find many tributes to Steve Irwin on social media, particularly around the anniversary of his passing.  But I wonder how many of his fans possess a passion for herps that extends beyond recreational field herping, herp photography, and herpetoculure?  Has the show nurtured a true passion for conservation, for environmentalism, and for meaningful action?  Or does it really matter, since its purpose was entertainment?

At his core, Steve Irwin was passionate about wildlife and outreach.  He was by all accounts a very warm, compassionate, and caring person.  I could see that after watching one episode.  I think the show reflected his true spirit, but I've got a hunch that had he been given more creative control, the focus would have been less on brute force and more on the animals themselves, in a less perturbed state.  Would that have sold well with young millennials?  Eh, probably not.

10/07/20 UPDATE:    Well, it seems as per usual, I was wrong in assuming that Steve Irwin didn't really inspire young people to become herpetologists.  Since I wrote this entry, I've met a number of field biologists and herpetologists who cite Irwin as a major inspiration.  I've also heard the same in some recent podcasts.  So, in short, my opinion is still unpopular, AND I'm pretentious.  Just wanted to make mention of that :)

A Love Letter to My Trusty Field Guide

A lot of old-timers in field herping circles often credit their trusty old field guide they had when they were young kids when explaining their love of reptiles and amphibians.  There's something about an old field guide that just warms your heart.  A field guide to a child was like a cheat sheet for finding reptiles and amphibians in the wild.  You'd have this book that contained information on every kind of frog, salamander, lizard, snake, and turtle that could be found in your area and beyond.  Then it practically gave you directions on how to find them, by describing the habitat and habits of each species.

Well, I'm not an old-timer (yet, I think?), but I do consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a time where the Internet was still in its infancy and not a household word, and where the only ways to pursue knowledge on herps was through books, magazines, and resources of that nature.  I love the Internet.  I think the Internet was the best thing to happen to the developed world.  But the Internet contains so much information - endless, in fact - that it's hard for me to imagine opportunities for kids today to use investigative skills to unlock intriguing information that formed the basis of daydreams I had as a kid.  Information is consumed only as fast as one can receive it, and as a kid it was slow and steady.  There was much more time for reflection then than there is today.  Maybe someone will read this and completely disagree with that statement.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Cognitive bias or not, there's no refuting the value of good old-fashioned hard-copy literature in the days when it was the end-all-be-all for rabid curiosity-seekers.

As a young kid, I had some of the older, tiny pocket field guides like the Golden Guides.  I read them over and over again until the cover and/or back fell off.  In retrospect, the information contained within them was very basic.  To me, it was more about looking at the drawings of snakes I hoped to find someday.

But one particular book changed my outlook on herping forever.  It was gifted to me by my Uncle and Aunt from California, for my birthday in 1995.  It was the third edition of the Peterson Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern/Central North America, by Roger Conant and Joseph Collins.  My precious new acquisition was brand new and tightly-bound, and on the cover was an iconic photograph of a pine barrens tree frog.  I was so excited I could barely contain myself.  I probably ran off with it and shut the door to my room so as to block any distractions that would impede my fantasies.



In fact, the book came in handy A LOT.  I took it everywhere I went, even on trips where I wasn't expecting to go herping.  I  took it just in case.  Every time I traveled somewhere new, I'd take it in hopes of using it to help identify species new to me.  It became my Bible - the field herper's Bible.  It was the final word when it came to searching for, identifying, handling, and recording herps.

Of course, over time, I became quite proficient at identifying herps - so much, that I found that I was using the field guide less and less.  You can only use it so much when you're traveling throughout the Midwest.  The book set out to teach me and it succeeded.  It never was in jeopardy of leaving my possession - to this day it occupies a very prominent place on my bookshelves.  It stands next to a book that I consider to be far inferior - the fourth edition of the same publication (long story but it's a mess of a book).  I love my old copy of the third edition.  It's like an old friend that wants to remind me of the carefree days when I was a kid spending hours catching frogs and snakes.  It's the only book I own with snake musk and toad urine stains in it.

I think the point of this post is that material goods are always secondary to experiences, but do not underestimate the inspiration that may be sparked by a good book.  The effect this book had/has on me transcends paper and ink and glue.

Beyond the graves

The following is a little story about life and death, but also about the good things that can transpire if only we cared enough about ourselves, others, and the environment.

The story begins with a proposition from Nathan Kutok.  A budding naturalist and ecologist, Nathan has been working and volunteering with local herps and natural areas over the last year or so.  He hails from McHenry County, in an area rich in open space with lots of rolling terrain and farmland.  While surveying for snakes at a preserve near him home, he was introduced to adjacent landowners, who had been in the process of "naturalizing" their sizable property to act as a buffer for the preserve, and for their own interests and well being.  While scouting the private property, the landowners informed him of a very old graveyard on the property.  Nathan took a photo of one of the headstones and sent it to me.  Naturally, I was really excited about this.  Early private cemeteries are far and few between, since most have been relocated to larger communal cemeteries or just completely lost to time.  After I inquired about seeing the headstones myself, the landowners agreed to allow us to visit their place.  So it wasn't long before I made the trip up north to meet Nathan and to view the old headstones and graveyard.

July 7th was an absolutely gorgeous day - you couldn't ask for a better day.  I met Nathan at the property in the morning, and we immediately began flipping cover boards he had previously placed out into a grassy field (I hesitate to call it "prairie", as it mostly consisted of Eurasian grasses, probably a remnant from the days when it was grazed by livestock).  A single snake was found - a young Storeria dekayi - before we noticed the landowners approach us from near the house.  The landowners, a wonderful couple originally from my old neighborhood in Chicago as chance would have it, were gracious enough to spend time with us, leading a tour of their property.  As they pointed out all of the restoration that has occurred over the last 17 years, it became clear to me that these people were real salt of the earth folks.  They didn't strike me as being overly concerned with worldly goods, with bitter politics, or with vanity.  They loved being close to nature and teaching people about history, and their philosophies regarding nature, conservation psychology, and connectivity.  It reminded me how easily we can become so completely wrapped up with stupid, meaningless issues and unwarranted stress in our everyday lives when we just don't spend enough time outdoors.

We reached the first of several headstones, a slab of limestone set so deep into the ground that only a portion of the engraving was legible.  As it turns out, all of the headstones that remained at or near their original location were in the same state of submersion; the landowners believe the stones had been knocked down long ago by clumsy cows, and over the years they simply began to sink down into the soil.

One of the headstones (which I unfortunately did not photograph) was for a woman named Olive.  Olive died at the age of 31 on November 1st, 1856.  On November 13, the Woodstock Sentinel carried the following notice: "Mrs. Chauncy Brandoe, of Alden, in this county, died very suddenly on Saturday night, the 1st inst.  She retired at the usual time, in apparently perfect health, and at daylight was found dead by her husband, who spoke to her, without a suspicion until then, that anything unusual had taken place.  A post-mortem examination, made by Dr. J.F. Hamilton, of this place, proved that she died of disease of the heart."  An inscription on her stone reads:

"When midnight darkness fills the skies,
And death and darkness reigns, 
I had my bonny bride torn from my side"

Coincidentally, the Olive stone was uncovered by restorationists on November 1st, 2003 - 147 years to the day she died.

What I found interesting was that though there was a small concentration of graves near where the original house stood long ago, there was one grave by itself a little down a hill near a modern driveway.  I couldn't make out the writing but I was told it was for a young girl.  Why was this grave site so far from the others?  I thought that maybe the stone had been moved at some point.  Later, I leaned that the graveyard began as a family plot but grew through the mid-1800s to include non-relatives.  Once the larger town cemetery was established nearby, families began moving bodies to that cemetery.  Around 1885, the little graveyard was abandoned, leaving only the original family members' graves on site.  The little girl by the driveway could have been a family member buried away from the family, or a non-family member who remained following the opening of the new cemetery.

Finally, we found our way to several small and broken pieces of headstones that were propped up against a good-sized glacial erratic.  The landowners explained to me that when they first purchased the land, they carried out some rearranging and clean up of the property.  When they pried up some stepping stones near their house, they were surprised to find out that the stepping stones were actually inverted headstones.  Someone at some point thought that using headstones as stepping stones was a good idea?  It made me scratch my head.  How hard would it have been to ethically source some conventional stepping stones?  Regardless, the landowners decided to return the headstones to the family grave area, but without knowing where the bodies are located, the stones were simply left in the general area.

Today, what's left of the family cemetery is concealed by a prairie restoration, which makes finding the headstones difficult in the summer.  The landowners were kind enough to send me photos they took during the spring or fall, when they stones were not covered in vegetation.  There are also several very large and old oak trees, certainly predating the homestead.  There are enough historic elements remaining to create a feeling of connectivity with the past, which really is an incredible thing to experience.

Of course, Nathan and I eventually resumed our search for herps and ultimately came away with about four species, including a group of grey treefrog (Hyla versicolor/chrysoscelis complex) tadpoles in an absolutely outstanding wetland the owners transformed from a goldfish pond the previous owners installed.

Nathan has since made additional trips to the site, and I plan on returning before the end of the season to help document herp species and distribution.  Any trip I make back there, however, will not be without a stroll through the old graveyard.