L.B.S. 5-29-2011

This Sunday wasn't a planned herp day. We were still worn out from our huge day in Western Mass and we had a party to go to at night! Speaking of the party, we took some party stuff a block up the street to our friends, to drop it off.

Now, these good friends (who we'll call... umm... how about Kate and Snag!) have mentioned "little brown snakes" in their yard before, but I'd never seen one. Except for a flattened mummified snake... that was probably a Dekay's (aptly named that time...). We'd received calls from Kate... "little brown snake in yard", but said snake had moved on by the time we got there. Too bad, because Dekay's Snakes are high on our want-it list!

Well, they weren't home when we dropped by, so we contented ourselves by flipping rocks in their stone wall. All of a sudden Andrea yelled "Little Brown Snake"! She'd caught our first Dekay's Snake (now better known as Northern Browns) in our years of herping together!






This lil fella was surprisingly muscular for being so diminutive!

These little beauties are common in the area, but we'd never found one alive! 3 dead ones, but nothing alive! Now, thanks to some good friends letting us root around in their yard, we've added this species to our list! And I'm old school... I'm going to always call them Dekay's Snakes. Or the ol' L.B.S.