Back out on the main drag, a snake wiggled across the road, and we stopped to rescue a small Western Ribbon Snake. We took some pictures on the roadside, along with some shots of a Green Treefrog found right where we plopped down for photos. The vertebral stripe on the snake was a pale yellow, looking more like an Eastern Ribbon, but the parietal spots were bright and touched together in proximus fashion, and there were eight supralabials. A Plain Jane Proximus, as it were.

A set of abandoned buildings along a field line caught our eye.  There weren't any No Trespassing signs that we could see. We stopped at a small inhabited house nearby, and I went up and knocked on the door. When the lady answered, I asked for permission to poke around and look for snakes to photograph. "That's Judge Atherton's property," she said. "Do you think the Judge would mind if we looked around a bit?" She gave me a look like I ought to know who Judge Atherton was, and in so knowing I ought to know the answer to my ridiculous question. "All I can tell you is, that's Judge Atherton's property, and you'll have to answer to him." That was good enough for me, coupled with the lack of signage.

There was plenty of boards and tin and other crap on the Judge's prized property, and before long Jim turned up a neonate Kingsnake. Down here the Kings were probably Black-Speckled intergrades. It was a nice looking snake, and we took a few pictures and put it right back where we found it, just to keep things square with His Honor the Judge...

Jeff has this herping eye that you have to see in action to fully appreciate. Passing a small pond along the roadside, he said "stop! snapper!" The turtle apparently had its head and neck extended out of the water, and Jeff spotted it, despite reflections off the water and a five or six foot drop from the roadbed. We walked back to see a big brown turtle-shaped blob, just visible in the water. I went back to the car and pulled on my rubber boots, and waded in. It was a fair-sized snapping turtle, all right. I am admitting right now that I am not comfortable grabbing the front of a big snapper's carapace, right behind the head - too close for comfort as far as I am concerned, and a mistake in judgement leaves little room for error. I prefer to grab the tail and a hind leg, letting the leg take most of the turtle's weight to avoid damaging the tail vertebrae. I executed this maneuver, taking a couple good slashes to the hand from the long, sharp rear claws. I walked it up to the roadside to have a look and take some pictures.

A female, her carapace was maybe fourteen inches in length, and I would say she weighed in around 20-25 pounds. As such she was a good sized adult snapper and plenty big enough for me. After a few pictures I hauled her back down to the water and let her carry on.