King of the Prairie

I recently visited Lincoln Memorial Gardens, and saw the King of the Prairie.

No,  "King of the Prairie" is not referring to the turtles.  These aren't even kings of the pond.  The true king of the pond remained below the water most of the time, but not forever:

This is the largest wild turtle I have ever seen.  Here's a picture from a previous trip:

In case you haven't guessed, this is the largest species of turtle in CENTRAL Illinois, the Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina).  The largest species of turtle in Illinois is the largest freshwater turtle in the world, the Alligator Snapping Turtle, but that is only present in far southern Illinois, and even there is a very scarce species.  Note the prominent nostrils, which is the way I identified this snapping turtle in the previous photograph.

Red-Eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) were out in force, as there were about twenty of them on one small pond.  Far and away, this is the most common turtle in Illinois.  It is considered one of the 100 most invasive species in the world, and is the only turtle to be considered as such.

Along the trail, an Eastern Comma butterfly (Polygonia comma) stopped to sunbathe.  This is the most prominent early spring butterfly in Illinois.  Eastern Commas are one of the few species of butterflies that overwinter as adults in Illinois, hiding in cracks beneath tree bark and such places.

I have no idea what this tree is, but it looks terrifying, even though it lacks thorns or spines.

Here's a good close up of the bark on this tree.  Anyone know what it is?

Here's yet more turtles.  Actually,  I mostly took pictures of the same three turtles, but from differing angles.

Here's a close up of the one in the back.  This is a different species, the Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta), the second most common Central Illinois turtle.  The red along the edge of the shell and body is a clue to this species' identity.  After watching the turtles for awhile, we moved on to the nearby woods.

Well, its a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)!  I promise that that name is not an insult, but the genuine name of the bird.

This bird is a type of woodpecker, but it is notable for drilling holes specifically so that it may obtain sap out of the tree.  These are winter migrants from the North, and will likely be gone in a few weeks' time as spring sets in fully.  Sapsuckers are especially notable during the winter in Lincoln Memorial Gardens because of the large groves of sugar maples, one of this bird's favorite foods.

And here we have a random picture of roosting cormorants for little reason whatsoever, other than the fact that I had no place else to stick it except as an abrupt transition to say we were near Lake Springfield.  The Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) are still quite prolific for now.

On a nearby breakwater, a lone Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) watched our group warily.

In the mouth of a nearby creek, a pair of Southern Leopard Frogs (Rana sphenocephala) were mating.  I took a picture beforehand.  We moved on after this, not particularly interested in watching.

False Rue Anemone (Enemion biternatum) is a widespread groundcover in certain sections of Lincoln Memorial Gardens, forming massed drifts of white flowers as shown.  It is fully Spring.

Evidently, some southern birds had caught the news that spring is here.  This Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) is one of the first insect-eating migrants to move north around here.

IT'S ALL SNAKES FROM HERE TO THE END!

I had been looking for snakes all afternoon, as they are kind of a hobby with me.  The front row in our group suddenly screamed and ran back, with calls of "Snake!".  I literally yelled,  "YES!  A snake!" and ran forwards.  Our professor caught the snake, an Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis), likely a close relative of the one I nearly stepped on a few weeks back. We looked at it for awhile, but then we let it go back under its log and went back to the prairie.  While watching tree swallows, there was another scream.   This time, the snake was twice as large and of a species I, to my knowledge, have never seen before:

Meet the four foot long, rather unhappy to be captured, Prairie Kingsnake (Lampropeltis calligaster).  This is one of the largest wild snakes I've seen. When cornered, they shake their tails, imitating a rattlesnake.  However, there are no rattlesnakes in this part of Illinois.  There ARE two species of rattlesnake in Illinois, but neither lives on this preserve.

This stunning snake bit the professor in the hand when he picked it up, but the mouth is too small to do much harm, although the bite does break the skin.  Nearly everyone misidentified this snake as a watersnake species of some sort, including me.  This makes me wonder what other snakes I've misidentified.  I know that I've misidentified Dekay's Brown Snake at least three times, so now I've begun to look back through my pictures to identify what I have seen.  We released the snake after a bit, leaving it on its way to continue, the king of the prairie.

History Trivia is over. It's just another thing to add and remember that I don't always want to do.