Evening campfires in the fall are nice, but morning campfires in the fall are more of a necessity.  We awoke to a cool morning with temperatures in the mid forties; not the best weather, but this time of the year snakes often have no choice but to be on the move.  After breakfast and a quick cleanup about the campsite we headed into town and hooked up with the 'Super Eighters'.  From there we proceeded east, our first stop a beautiful junkpile on the side of a hill.

There were plenty of things to 'lift' for everyone - plywood, particle boards, tin, appliances, roofing, siding, you name it.  I scored a nice adult Southern Black Racer under a decrepit chunk of particle board.  This snake had an interesting feature - the end of its snout was a horn color. 

Sometimes I think there may be some law of inverse proportions involved with junkpiles, because it often seems like the larger the junkpile, the greater your expectations, and fewer herps are found.  Other than my racer and a few fence lizards, our junkpile was unproductive.  With sore flippers we headed back to the vehicles and our next target, a series of rock ledges along a wooded valley.

Working along the ledges, Austin found the first herp, a neonate Southern Black Racer with an enucleated eye socket.  Life is no picnic for baby snakes.  We discovered some Cave Salamanders in crevices along the ledges, and Jeff turned up two very pretty Earth Snakes under a single flat stone. Stacey located two of the biggest Northern Fence Lizards I've ever seen, certainly the Alpha-Scelops for this section of rock ledges.  Someone found another young racer, last year's hatch from the looks of it.

Copperheads and Black Rat Snakes are known from this area, but none presented themselves on this occasion.  Not that we had anything to complain about - a hundred yards of rock ledge had given us plenty of herps to see and enjoy.  We clambered back up to the trail and headed downhill for a while, turning up a nice Marbled Salamander under plywood near an old deer stand and a couple of Northern Ringneck Snakes.  At a certain point we cut right off the trail and headed up a rocky slope with a nice southern exposure.  This hill was littered with large chunks of shattered limestone, with a light sprinkling of cedar trees - a great spot for hibernacula.  We kept our eyes open as we climbed, looking for snakes sunning themselves in the warm sunlight of an October afternoon.  We were rewarded with a couple Fence Lizards and one Cottonmouth under a flat rock.  I have found a number of moccasins here on several occasions, denning up for the winter at least a half mile from suitable piscivorus habitat.  No Copperheads yet, although I'm certain they are here, and I always hold out hope for a Timber Rattler.  The habitat is good - rocky hills above a large expanse of forest, but as Jim and Jeff have reminded me, horridus may have been here at one time, but they might have been extirpated by the locals in years past.  I'll keep looking and hoping.