Multifarious Maunderings

This is sort of a catch-up post for an outing back on 04/22/2006. I guess it is not, as the thesaurus induced title might suggest, a miscellaneous-type update, but I needed a catchy hook, so . . .

I spent that entire Saturday at the nearest Massasauga site, hoping to encounter any of several interesting herps (Clonophis, Liochlorophis, etc) as well as some rattlesnakes. I had packed a lunch and brought several bottles of water, as well as having dressed in old sneakers and a pair of roomy kakhis (to accomadate all the bending and stooping involved in herping).

The first couple of snakes of the day were encountered under a piece of cover-- a small Eastern Garter and this Northern Water Snake/Nerodia s. sipedon, possibly the ugliest ever photographed. I am pretty convinced that it had just recently come out of hibernation, hence the mud-coveredness.

Several other pieces of likely looking cover held nothing, as did the nearby meadows. I moved on to a wet field between a woodlot and a small lake. The available cover in the field held nothing, so I began checking the cover just inside the perimiter of the woods. Just a technical note: edge habitat (i.e. places where fields meet woods and ponds meet the shore vegetation/rocks) often holds an incredible amount of wildlife.

I was checking underneath old rotting logs for salamanders, when some movement caught my eye. I had startled this handsome Northern Leopard Frog/Rana p. pipiens. Since it is pretty common where I live, I tend not to pay much attention to this species, but Leopard Frogs need love, too, right?

From the edge of the woods I headed over towards the pond, which is bordered by some intermittent brush, trees, and muckland. It was as I was making my way way through the brush and trees, when I spotted something small and orange-ish picking its way through the matted down grass. I was hoping it was a Four-Toed Salamander, but was not dissapointed that it was not, and they are not known to occurr at this locale anyway. It turned out to be a Spring Peeper/Pseudacris crucifer. My photo hardly does the color justice (I really believe I would not have seen it at all if it had not been so bright), but you can see that this specimen bears the cross-like markings that give it the second half of its scientific name.

I spent alot of the day being dissapointed at finding nothing under very likely looking pieces of cover. I did see several more water snakes as well as some Bullfrogs at a man-made marsh resevoir. I also found several places that appeared to be perfect Massasauga habitat, but saw none there.

Towards the end of the day, I found several pieces of cover in a drier field just across the road from a really wet field. Almost every piece held at least one Eastern Garter. The last one I looked under held this tiny rattlesnake, probably just under a year old. He was not disturbed at all that I had exposed him to the light of day; he just sat there. After getting several shots of him in this coiled position, I nudged him just a bit with my snake hook.

He immediately got all defensive on me and began rattling, but, because he was so young and appeared to have only the button (the first) segment of his rattle, this made no noise, except when his rapidly vibrating tail came into contact with the dry grass. A couple of things here:

1. It is impossible to tell the age of a rattlesnake by the number of segments in its rattle. Rattlers add a segment every time they shed their skin, which, in the early years of their life they may do 4-6 times annually. In addition, the rattles can be relatively easily damaged and frequetly break off.
2. Many species of harmless snakes such as rat-snakes or gopher snakes will vibrate their tail when disturbed. When these are sitting in dry-leaves or grass, the vibration will make a buzzing sound not unlike that of a rattler. Because of this, one should not assume that a snake behaving in this manner is deadly and should be killed immediately. Contrariwise, one should never handle a snaked they have not positively identified, even if it is not vibrating its tail

The photo below also illustrates a defensive trick many snakes resort to when they feel threatened, which is to spread their ribs to make themselves appear larger. The effect is most noticeable near the tail in this specimen-- you can almost see the tips of the ribs pushing the sides of the body out.

Well, that's all for now. Within a week or so, I should be able to put up a new entry on my Hocking Hills expedition with the boys. So long until then!