Snake Road

A Field Guide to the Snakes of LaRue–Pine Hills

Joshua J. Vossler

“The LaRue–Pine Hills area is one of our favorite ‘day trip’ spots, and we unreservedly recommend that visitors take Vossler’s book along to enhance this unique experience. Go and enjoy a ‘snaky’ day!”—Larry P. and Donna J. Mahan, authors, 20 Day Trips in and around the Shawnee National Forest

Paper: 978-0-8093-3818-4

E-book: 978-0-8093-3819-1

$27.95, 128 pages, 115 illus.

Read more and order at www.siupress.com/backyardprairie.

All the makings of natural wonder in your backyard

In 2003 Fred Delcomyn imagined his backyard of two and a half acres, farmed for corn and soybeans for generations, restored to tallgrass prairie. Over the next seventeen years, Delcomyn, with help from his friend James L. Ellis scored, seeded, monitored, reseeded, and burned these acres into prairie. In A Backyard Prairie, they document their journey and reveal the incredible potential of a backyard to travel back to a time before the wild prairie was put into plow rows. It has been said, “Anyone can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.” This book shows us how.

The first book to celebrate a smaller, more private restoration, A Backyard Prairie offers a vivid portrait of what makes a prairie. Delcomyn and Ellis describe selecting and planting seeds, recount the management of a prescribed fire, and capture the prairie’s seasonal parades of colorful flowers in concert with an ever-growing variety of animals, from the minute eastern tailed-blue butterfly to the imperious red-winged blackbird and the reclusive coyote.

This book offers a unique account of their work and their discovery of a real backyard, an inviting island of grass and flowers uncovered and revealed. We often travel miles and miles to find nature larger than ourselves. In this rich account of small prairie restoration, Delcomyn and Ellis encourage the revival of original prairie in our backyards and the patient, beauty-seeking soul sleeping within ourselves.

Both Fred Delcomyn and James L. Ellis serve on the board of directors of Grand Prairie Friends, a conservation organization in east-central Illinois involved in prairie restoration projects. Fred Delcomyn, a certified master naturalist and professor emeritus of the School of Integrative Biology at the University of Illinois, is the author of Foundations of Neurobiology along with numerous scholarly articles on insects. James L. Ellis, a botanist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, manages and maintains the University of Illinois Natural Areas. He has published extensively on prairie ecology, conservation, restoration, and management.

Visiting the mecca of snake watching

Twice a year, spring and fall, numerous species of reptiles and amphibians migrate between the LaRue–Pine Hills’ towering limestone bluffs and the Big Muddy River’s swampy floodplain in southern Illinois. Snakes, especially great numbers of Cottonmouths, give the road that separates these distinct environments its name. Although it is one of the best places in the world to observe snakes throughout the year, spring and fall are the optimal times to see a greater number and variety. Among the many activities that snakes can be observed doing are sunning themselves on rocks, lying in grasses, sheltering under or near fallen tree limbs, or crossing the road. In this engaging guide, author Joshua J. Vossler details what to expect and how to make the most of a visit to what is known around the world as Snake Road.

Vossler catalogs twenty-three native snake species by both common and scientific names, lists identifying features, and estimates the probability of spotting them. Throughout this book, stunning color photographs of each species’ distinctive physical characteristics enable identification by sight only, an important feature, since Illinois law prohibits the handling, harming, or removal of reptiles and other wildlife on and around the road. Since snakes are visually variable—individual snakes of the same species can differ tremendously in size, color, and pattern—photographs of as many variations as possible are included. To aid in identification, eleven sets of photographs contrast the features of similar species and point out how and why these snakes may be easily confused. Visitors can keep track of the snakes they have identified by using the checklist in the back of the book. A list of recommended reading provides sources of additional information about snakes in southern Illinois and beyond.

Joshua J. Vossler, an associate professor and academic librarian at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is the coauthor of Humor and Information Literacy: Practical Techniques for Library Instruction. He specializes in making instructional videos about research skills. He is a lifelong snake watcher and herpetological enthusiast.

Paper: 978-0-8093-3805-4

E-book: 978-0-8093-3806-1 $19.50, 168 pages, 355 illus. Shawnee Books

Paper: 978-0-8093-3862-7

Cloth: 978-0-8093-3790-3

E-book: 978-0-8093-3791-0

$22.95, 248 pages, 34 illus.

Read more at www.siupress.com/edith.