It was mid-afternoon before we arrived at the place where the field trip was to commence the following morning.  A number of folks were on hand already, including some old friends.  The wind had picked up and was roaring out of the south, which is not so unusual on the Kansas prairie.  We pitched our tents in the lee of an old barn, and then decided to just move them into the barn to keep them from blowing away.  There was still time before sunset to get in a little herping, and a nearby rocky hillside beckoned.  Climbing the hill we came across a Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) basking in the fading sun.

We flipped some rocks along a nearby road cut, and found a female Collared Lizard (Crotaphytus collaris).  At a small junk pile, more herps were discovered, including a Yellow-bellied Racer and a Redsided Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis), her mid-section distended by an enormous meal.

We headed back to our tent-barn for some supper.  It was completely dark now, and the wind was still blowing. Above the noise of the wind we could hear the clickety sounds of chorus frogs and the trill of toads, somewhere out in the dark.