Our next stop was a lovely junkpile on a hillside, which in the past had yielded a number of snakes including Southern Black Racers.  Hmm, it looks like some other herpers are maintaining this site, spreading cover boards and tin out with nothing overlapping.  The rain was now coming down in a steady sprinkle as we commenced to flipping (well, lifting more than flipping; flipping is such an ugly word).  Matt turned up the only snake at the spot today, a nice Shawnee King.  At least we weren't skunked on this one.  The trouble with junkpiles is the expectation that each lovely board or mattress or refrigerator will have something nice under it.

Darkness was falling; time to head on to the last stop of the day, a rocky, wooded hillside.  Right off the bat we found another opacum and a few Slimies.  Next was a small Redbellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata) under a stone.  A Scincella, next.  Opacum.  Slimy, Slimy, and another Slimy.  One thing for certain, the fellas were getting their salamander fix, big time.

Whups - there's something new, an Upland Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata feriarum), actually common in this particular area.  This one looked to be a big fat female.

By this time (7 pm)  the daylight was positively dim.  That didn't stop Jeff from making an interesting find - a juvenile Southern Black Racer.  This young snake was perhaps 14 inches long, but already had the slate-blue coloration of an adult, with only a trace of a pattern left.  This was in sharp contrast with the juvenile Blue Racers and Eastern Yellowbellied Racers that we were familiar with, juveniles with a typical contrasting pattern.  I must confess I didn't know whether it was normal for Illinois priapus to attain adult colors early on - this was the first juvenile I have seen in the many years I've herped down here.  An interesting mystery I would take pleasure in solving.

Jim found a Worm Snake, another small one.  I stumbled across a Cave Salamander, sallying forth from a crevice for the night's hunting.  A cool and wet evening, perfect for salamanders.  A couple more Slimies and that's it - we were done.  There was very little light left to climb back up the hill.

Not quite done.  Matt discovered a juvie Black Rat Snake crawling across an open rock face.  Woohoo!  One last herp, and a beauty, too!

Finally we were out and heading back to the truck.  I chanced to spot a little blob of something hopping across the trail in front of me and made a grab - the abso-positively last herp of the day, a Fowler's Toad (Bufo fowleri).  We had to examine the little blighter under the truck's headlights, as it was near eight o'clock, and the rain continuing.