Cathy, Dorothy, Abba, and I went for a bit of a hike this afternoon. We want to walk to a place we call Bluebell Island, although it doesn’t actually have a name. It’s an island and it’s covered with Virginia bluebells, though, so the name seems fitting. The trail we took was quite overgrown, though, with roses, briars, and all sorts of other things. We had brought clippers but between the weeds and the wet, we eventually gave up. We came back by a slightly different route and were just coming out of the woods when we happened to come across this black snake. I’ve never seen this before, but he ‘rattled’ his tail as though he were a rattlesnake. Apparently that’s something they do sometimes. It was a bit freaky. Dorothy and I especially enjoyed Cathy and Abba’s reactions. Let’s just say that they were not big fans.
Tagged With: Snake
Nerodia sipedon (Northern Watersnake)
A little further along Rock Creek from where we saw the azaleas in bloom, we happened to go down onto a stony area along the creek. Cathy was turning over rocks looking for interesting colors (and she’s hoping to find garnets). She turned over a rock that looked promising, started screaming, and ran past me jumping up and down. There was a snake under the rock, enjoying the residual warmth that the stone had collected during the warmer part of the day. This is a northern watersnake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon). Kind of cool, actually, but Cathy wasn’t convinced.
Eastern Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix)
We went for a lovely walk along the creek below Croyden Creek Nature center this afternoon. I assume the creek is called Croyden Creek although I haven’t ever found that name on any map. Still, it stands to reason. I got some photos of robins (Turdus migratorius), an eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), a common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), and a hairy woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), although none of them were great. Cathy spotted a luna moth (Actias luna), which was cool, and we found a fair amount of dwarf ginseng Panax trifolius. There was a lot of American cancer-root (Conopholis americana) blooming, which is a parasitic plant, living on the roots of oak trees. But the excitment was when Cathy came close to stepping on this eastern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). She reacted about as you’d expect and we’ve definitely grateful that she didn’t get bitten.
Valley Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi)
As mentioned in the previous post, Cathy and I drove up to and walked the Ray Atkeson trail today along Sparks Lake, northeast of Mt. Bechelor. We really enjoyed the walk, although at one point, fairly early in the walk, we came across this valley garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi). Cathy’s not a huge fan of snakes and although I tried to warn her, I had a hard time getting it out. She saw it, screamed and did a little dance. Although garter snakes have a mild venom in their saliva, which may be toxic to the amphibians and other small animals on which they prey, they are pretty harmless to humans. Also, they are not at all aggressive. This one let me get a few pictures before retreating into the rocks beside the trail.