We moved on, and as we moved on, the wind picked up.  Our next stop was a stone wall with some corrugated roofing nearby.  By now the wind was a force to be reckoned with, blowing so hard it made walking difficult.  We didn't uncover any snakes, which is just as well, since they might have blown away to the north.  We did see a number of GPS and our old friend the Ground Skink (Scincella laterale), and a few Ringnecks.  It was kind of fun to be out in all of this wind - we don't get that kind of blowing back in Corn Country.

On we went, and Ken spotted a snake crawling on a stone barn as we passed, missed by the rest of us in the vehicle and by the Iowans up ahead of us.  It was a mid-sized Black Rat Snake, but unfortunately we couldn't photograph it in situ on the neat old barn.  This was turning out to be a snakey day.

We stopped at a small rock pile and Dav found the first Milk Snake of the trip.  The milk snakes here are apparently intergrades between the Red (syspila) and the Central Plains (gentilis).  The narrow and numerous crossbands were interesting, the red being much reduced and the white bands of equal or greater proportions.  This would not be our last 'genspila', but none that followed looked like this one.  Much picture-taking ensued.

Steve turned up a juvenile Great Plains Skink, which got me excited again - they are almost black, with a blue tail.  What a neat find!  We also found one that was a little older, and was starting to lose the black and blue in favor of the lighter adult coloration.

Juvenile GPS

We were having a great day and it was just barely ten in the morning.  Once again we headed along to the next spot...