Hissy Fit

     I know.  I know.  This is freaking some people out.  But this post is for those who not only appreciate snakes but also for those who just haven't had that much experience with them.  The Bullsnake (a.k.a.  Gopher Snake) is one of those wild animals with...personality.  You'll see these on the road and if you are a kind and intelligent person, you will avoid running them over.  They are harmless to humans and eat tons of mice.  When approached, they put on an amazing show.  From just lying on the road soaking up some rays, they will coil up, hiss, rattle their tail to try to make you think they are something they are not, and will try to appear as mean as possible so you will just LEAVE THEM ALONE.  As is so typical with Bullsnakes, once they've went through their repertoire of scare tactics and realize that they aren't working, they will simple give up.  They then let you pick them up.  Oh, one more trick...they will poop on you as a last little defensive gimmick.  But after all the antics, after all the fake "I'm gonna kill you" behavior, they can end up being the best pet a kid ever had.  After their brief taming down, they can be easily held and admired.  They don't bark or scratch the furniture and only eat once a week or so in the summer.  Mice can be easily caught and be provided as food, yielding yet another incredibly interesting opportunity for feeding observations.   But this day, on this sandy road, with temperatures climbing to the 80's, this personable Bullsnake gave a good show.  I named this one "Hissy" and then let it go on its way.  Go get those rodents Hissy!

Walking Sticks

      One of the coolest wild hand pets is the walking stick.  Kansas is favored with a couple of species.  By looking like a stick, they are able to easily conceal themselves from predators, earning them their name.  While they can be found on various grasses and broad-leaf plants, they really like multi-flowered scurfpea (wild alfalfa).  

     Scout the countryside.  Find a pasture with some taller grass and forbs (broadleaf plants) and search for this leggy insect.  Sweeping the vegetation with an insect net is an easy way to collect walking sticks.  These are great amusements for kids of all ages.  Harmless, they are fun to allow them to explore their temporary human habitat.  These are just another of the very interesting wild creatures of the Kansas prairie which are very easy for handling--another simple cure for nature deficit disorder.

Traveling Tarantulas

Its nearly September and time for the Texas Brown Tarantulas to begin their annual fall dispersal.  Typically, the males are seen crossing roads in the Red Hills and other parts of southern Kansas this time of year.  Stan Roth was kind enough to correct my mistake (thank you) on description of the sex originally as female in my first posting.  It is, indeed, the males that do the roaming.  

These large spiders can raise up on their hind legs and act very menacing but it's generally just a big show.  Not totally harmless, they do have fangs although it takes a lot of harassment to get them to fang you.  Its not a strong venom though and cannot kill you.  They do have hairs on their abdomen which can be somewhat irritating to skin.  They do have enemies though.

The Tarantula Hawk is actually a wasp.  They were also hunting this blacktop road this evening, looking for a tarantula to sting and then carry off to a hole.  It will bury the tarantula in the hole with an egg so that the young wasp will have a first meal as it emerges.  Its always an entertwining and exciting drama in the Kansas Outback.

Look What I Caught!

      It's really hard to match the excitement of actually holding a Texas Horned Lizard you caught yourself.  These are some of the coolest live hand pets a kid can experience.  Totally harmless, the misnamed "horny toad" is an incredibly interesting lizard.  While their populations are under threats in other states and on special lists of concern, the horny toad is still quite numerous in the Kansas Outback.  Preferring sandy or rocky soils with sparse cover, they  eat mainly ants.  They flatten and spread their bodies when approached by predators and humans.  Their cryptic camouflage makes them hard to see unless they move, which they don't very much.  Hawks will eat them as well as the Greater Roadrunner which is quite common in the Red Hills and other parts of southern Kansas.  

     Named for the sharp spikes around their head, the Texas Horned Lizard, will try to twist its head and neck to discourage holding.  They are fun to temporarily play with but are very hard to keep in captivity.  They will play dead when turned over and twitch to make it seem they are dying.  On rare occasions, they may squirt a drop of blood from their eyes.  This is not known to occur in the wild but has been observed by handling them.  In hand and flattened, their sides can be pushed up and down where they will "hold the pose."  Nothing in the cyber world can come close to matching the joy and amazement a kid can experience through a real life encounter with a horny toad!

Grasshopper Wrangling

     Give your kids some Vitamin N (Nature).  Its so easy.  Catch some grasshoppers and look in the Insects of Kansas insect guide to find the most common insects.  Whether in your back yard or a wilder landscape in the Kansas Outback, catching grasshoppers is a time-tested by kids activity.  An insect net makes it easier but hand catching makes for a fun sport and plenty of exercise.  With nature deficit disorder at epidemic levels, its so easy to prescribe some simple grasshopper chasing as a perfect remedy.  With a wide variety of grasshoppers available, there is ample opportunity to challenge children with fairly easy identification games.  Here, it was easy to find the Carolina grasshopper in the guide.  Even in the summer heat, some fun can be found along with a great learning adventure...in the awesome Kansas Outback

It's so hot...

It's so hot, I think I'll lay on this branch a while.  Whew.  Well that's not going to do it.

Maybe I'll try this.  The dog had dug this hole and was lying there.  Oh yeah, that's better--a little cooler.  This better help or I'm going to look at that bird bath very seriously!

TNC is going Underground in the Outback

     Lance Hedges, Conservation Director of The Nature Conservancy of Kansas, expresses a happy face in a cave in the Red Hills of South-central Kansas.  Most of the caves of Kansas are located in the gypsum formations of Barber and Comanche counties.  The uniqueness of these features and the wildlife they harbor add to the importance of the area to the conservancy as well as the ranchers of the Red Hills.  In a recent trip, several TNC members along with local landowners experienced the thrill of going underground.    This is a special privilege as nearly all the caves in Kansas are on private land and have been kept in relatively good and safe condition because of being protected from having too much human use.  

     Among the half dozen or so bat species which frequent the Red Hills cave areas the Pallid Bat I'm holding is among the most fascinating.  It has a particularly interesting feeding habit of alighting on the ground at night to chase down scorpions, centipedes and ground beetles.  Occasionally using a cave or two, these light colored bats prefer to squeeze into cracks in canyon walls.  There are 17 known species of bats in Kansas and several are known only from the Red Hills region.  Bats are important indicators of a healthy environment and are nature's natural insect control agents.