Rehydrated and rested a bit, we headed up the other hill around five o'clock. This one had a thick, dense stand of cedars on the upper reaches, so we cut across the lower portion of the slope, from outcrop to outcrop. Years of fire suppression wasn't helping the hillside prairie habitat.

We hadn't gotten very far along before Jeff sang out "Timber! Maybe two!" There were two, a yellow snake, and a darker, black-headed horridus, out sunning on top of a small rock outcrop. The rest of us rushed over, but the snakes were on the move, and Jeff could only detain one before we could get there to help. The snake with the black head slithered to safety under a big rock, embedded and too big to lift. We could hear it rattling somewhere under the rock.

We still had one fine specimen of a rattler to look over. This one was not quite as stunning as the first one we found, but it was still a very good-looking animal. A male, perhaps 30 inches or a little over that. It sported the lighter, yellowish head, with a nice darker postocular stripe, and another specimen with a darker coloration on the end third of the body. We saucered this snake as well before taking photographs, and it remained relatively calm while we took pictures.

We let this snake join its companion under the rock, and finished scouting the hillside. There wasn't quite as much habitat here - Jim found another really pretty neonate Milksnake, and I turned up a few Fivelined Skinks. We did spot a few of the striped ground squirrels here and there, probably an important food item for these Iowa buzztails, along with tree squirrels and rabbits and smaller rodents.

We ended our day around six o'clock, and drove out to the local Dairy Queen for supper. Unfortunately, Jeff had to leave for home and work the next morning, and it was a long drive back up to Minnesota. I was happy to get at least one day in the field with Jeff, along with a chat during the drive - we live quite a distance apart. We said our goodbyes until our next outing and Jim, Matt and I headed back to Jim's house. With our change in plans for the day, we weren't that far away from a hot shower and a real bed at Jim's. By consensus, no camping out for us tonight. Before turning in we enjoyed a beer or two out in Jim's back yard, swinging in hammocks under his cool gazebo. Venus and the sickle moon did their overhead dance while we sipped our beers and deconstructed the day. Our alternate plans had worked out well - we beat the bad weather and had a most productive herping experience. Tomorrow we would try to do it again...