The next (and last) day of the trip dried out for us but was on the cool side. We didn’t have much hope for finding snakes, but we were happy to just get out and explore. We drove to a neighboring county to meet up with a TNC site steward to explore some property. We had Charlie the indigo sniffing dog in training with us as well. The area is filled with unique geologic features (for the area) and home to many rare and even a few endemic plants. One of the plants observed during our visit was Cutleaf Penstemon (Penstemon dissectus) which is endemic to Georgia. Some of the area had recently been burned, and in this area we lucked out and I found a small indigo snake. Little is known about juvenile indigo snake behavior, and this find represented the smallest individual (~ 2 years old) found at the property.

Thanks for following along!

Blog post by Christopher E. Smith (FieldEcology.com). Be sure to get the latest blog entries by signing up for blog updates by subscribing via e-mail or following on Twitter.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank The Orianne Society for hosting us during our staff. Become a member to support their important work, and for your invite to one of their many field-herping events.

Note: All herps were handled with proper permits and no vans were harmed during the making of this video.

The FieldEcology blog is meant to be informational and thought provoking. Wherever possible, I provide links to supporting external resources. Views expressed here do not represent the views of my employer(s).