so back to the massasauga rattler research... it's getting a bit warm up here in michigan. makes everything very difficult and tedious. we measured ground surface temps of 130 degrees and relative humidity over 85%! the long and short of it was, we decided to go out first thing in the AM to get the best chance to see some snakes. we saw probably 20 water snakes, a dozen eastern garters, and a few browns along with a milk snake and all the rattlers we had to track... so here's a few pics:

brown snake eating a slug


an eastern milk (my first in the wild)


an oddly grey colored massasauga... i like this look (sorry the humidity was wreaking havoc on my camera's focusing abilities)


this guy let me get a couple decent shots finally