RATSNAKE RENDEVOUS

Late Sunday, just as I was winding down a day of general garden and yard work, something delightful happened. The main task of that beautiful Fall afternoon was setting yet another very long 4x4 post in cement ... all part of my deer fence project.

The worky part was done, so I started walking around grabbing old pots, fertilizer bags, etc. The barn area had gotten a bit junky ... that happens when there are no neighbors to see it. 
So, I did a little sprucing up. (I'm not sure why we use that phrase..."sprucing up", ... are spruce trees neat and tidy?
Nobody says, "I did a little "Oaking up" or "Southern Longleaf Pining up".
... I'm wandering here ... back to Sunday...

Just as I was winding up (tempting to explore that one too..."winding up", but NO), there was this flash of deep orange near an old gate. 
Ratsnake!

I love these beauties and snatched this one up for a short visit. 
The snake was awesome, you can see that in the video. I do wonder if he wasn't a ratsnake cross. They naturally hybridize and we have about 4 species in this region. 
Whatever the case, it was a great ending to the first real Fall weather weekend of 2018.

THERE'S A SMALL COBRA LOOSE IN OCALA, I RELEASE A SMALL RATSNAKE, AND SOME ASSORTED SMALL REPTILES

There's a 2 foot long Cobra loose in Ocala on this frosty March morning. It's a shame it isn't a really big one... much easier to find. A two foot snake of any kind is a stealthy needle in a haystack.

Today is very (Florida Scale) cold and tonight promises to be a hard freeze, so that Cobra is probably wishing he was back under the heat lamp in his obviously not secure cage.

In the meantime, while we ponder the wisdom of keeping venomous snakes in suburbia, ... let's take a look at some sweet, native, and mostly small reptiles that hang out here at PFHQ.

This beautiful Southern Ringneck Snake, Diadophis punctatus punctatus, popped up in a handful of grass while I was weeding the blueberry patch recently.

These little gems mostly go sight unseen.

If you want to see one, you might do the following. 

Try laying an old carpet or a piece of plywood on the ground and leaving it for a while.

Later, peek under it every once in a while, you might just get to see a Ringneck.

Remember, every dark snake is not a Moccasin... (or a Cobra) You don't have to break out the sharp shovel or hoe just because it's a dark snake.

This is our native Carolina Anole, (Anolis Carolinensis).

He is hanging out on my pollinator house tower in the garden.

 I did add a little lizard house to the top of it, so I'm glad to see him, even if an occasional native bee winds up as lizard chow.

In contrast, here's a non-native Brown Anole, (Anolis sagrei).

He's lurking in my daughter Katy's bee house down near Tampa. 

When these first appeared in Florida, we were pretty concerned they would wipe out our native Greens, but it is turning into a pretty good example of "resource partitioning".

The Greens are more arboreal and hunt mostly off the ground, while the Browns feed closer to the ground. So, they may both be eating insects, but they are doing it in different locations.

Which is a good thing, because the Browns are here to stay.

Speaking of "here to stay" ...

I thought I might keep Kim the Grey Ratsnake, (Pantherophis spiloides )in my classroom as a long term ambassador from the snake world, but I changed my mind.

She did her good work as a friendly snake for a few months, but she was a wild snake after all. When I loaded her into the JEEP for Spring Break on that last Friday of school, I already knew she would not be coming back.

The video below is me saying goodbye to Kim snake here at PFHQ.

(Yes, I know snakes are deaf)

EVERYONE who owns a snake talks to it.

The Florida Rough Greensnake ... Sara N. Dippity makes a home delivery. Thanks Babe!

Green has been my favorite color all my life ... except for a brief affair with bright orange in second grade... something about the orange Crayola crayon teased me away from green for a few months in Mrs. Ackerman's class.

It was only a fling and I soon came to my senses.

Life is good if green is your favorite color.

It's everywhere ... at least in my habitat, a subtropical peninsula with 55 inches of rain a year.

So green is a constant here, and yet, sometimes a special bit of green serendipitously slithers into your life.

About a week ago, I started up the boy's (now a 3L law student) high school Hyundai just to let it run and keep the battery charged.

(Anyone need a basic car?)

Anyhoo ... After the car ran for about 20 minutes, I decided to run it down the road and back for a little auto-exercise.

Here's where Sara N. Dippity decided to ride along.

Immediately, as I pulled out of our long sandy driveway and on to the paved road, I noticed a thin sliver of ... something.

It was almost a straight line and smack dab in the road center.

At first, I thought it was a twig, but it had a couple of rounded curves ... just barely there, but twigs don't have ripples.

Snake!

I parked quickly and got out to move it off the road, fully expecting it to be a baby rat snake.

But it was this guy!

Holy Smokes!

The last time I saw a green snake was the late 80's and I was the resident NPS Ranger at Fort Matanzas National Monument.

The encounter back then was one I will never forget.

I was walking towards the visitor center breezeway from the parking lot and something substantial fell from the cedar tree above me and bounced off my Park Service Stetson.

It was a green snake.

But back to the future ...

I grabbed the little green guy off the road and immediately cancelled the car exercise.

This was a photo opportunity, blog fodder, and a road rescue wrapped in my favorite color.

So, with the long slender snake in my right hand, I got back in the car and did a U-turn.

The snake was being completely cooperative ... I thought.

Apparently I mistook it's docile non-bitey attitude for compliance.

As soon as I put my right, snake holding hand on the steering wheel, the green snake thrust the very slender, delicate tip of his tail into a thin space on the backside of the steering wheel and began backing into it.

No dang it!

I tried to pull him out, but he had already slipped in enough tail to get a purchase on something in there.

He was anchored.

I needed to make a 90 degree left turn off the paved road and into my driveway, but that was pretty much impossible with the snake stuck in the wheel.

It might hurt the snakey bits in the wheel and I would certainly loose control of him, which would allow more of him to back into the steering column.

Lucky for me, I live on a VERY quiet country road.

(The extra large eye, and keeled scales say this is the Florida Rough Greensnake  Opheodrys aestivus carinatus)

I stopped in the middle of the road and gingerly tugged and wiggled the posterior parts of the snake out of the steering column. 

He was pretty delicate and thin at his back end and I did not want to harm him.

Eventually, I extricated him and pulled down my drive.

And then the fun began.

I wasn't about to let this gem go until I had my fill of photos.

He was completely cooperative, never attempting to bite even as I manipulated him for photos.

My paws are in these photos mainly for a size reference.

In the photo above you can see the very slender tail tip that this emerald beauty poked down into the Hyundai steering column.

... undamaged I might add. 

He's pretty obvious out of his environment, but take a look below.

I let him go here at PFHQ where snakes are safe and welcome.

I chose this picture to show how arboreal and almost invisible green snakes are and why sightings are fairly rare.

The photos I did not choose for this last scene were good sharp photos, but he was so invisible ... seeing the snake became a challenge.

I think about the serendipity of this encounter and it makes me smile.

Had I not decided to take the little Hyundai out for a brief road run at the moment, (I had not done that in months)... that green beauty decided to bask in the center of the road ... this encounter would not have happened ... or worse, I would have later found a smashed, road-killed green snake in the road.

Whew!

I DO love it when Sara rides along.

The Perils Of Being A Private Trail Pooper In Rattlesnake Country

PFHQ sits smack in the middle of 10 acres of Florida oak and palm hammock, and those 10 acres are just one small piece in a much larger forest owned by other folks.

We'll call them "neighbors" although I hardly ever hear or see any of them.

Point is, PFHQ is no island. 

Lots of wildlife move under, through, and over the patchwork of fences that delineate our little human kingdoms.

Most of that wildlife is welcome here, and those that aren't are not summarily executed...even the dangerous ones.

Over 30 years, I've taken the time to move coral snakes and even a rattler to bigger, safer, wilder places...like our 20 acre pine plantation a few miles from here.

I've taken in less dangerous refugees too and released them here at PFHQ.

You walk a fine line when you try to live and let live with rattlesnakes though. Mostly, I never see them. Yet, I know my 10 acres is ideal habitat for them with a mix of open and forested land, a pond, palmetto patches, and gopher tortoise burrows.

Last year, I found a 5 foot freshly shed diamondback skin draped over saw palmetto fronds ... it was still moist.

Not counting the pygmy rattler I relocated last year, it has been years since I've come across a rattlesnake on the property.

Until today.

He's beautiful.

He's also dead.

Here's why...

We have 2 Labs, Bear and Coquina.

The dogs and I walk our woodsy trails multiple times each and every day. 

I always walk them on two 15 foot retractable leashes because the property is not perfectly fenced and they are big powerful dogs who I would never catch if they gave chase to the deer that frequent PFHQ.

Plus, if they were roaming about during the warm months, unsupervised, they could easily come across a diamondback in the scrub or a moccasin by the pond.

Bear has a particular peculiarity that adds a little more danger to this scenario.

He is the most private pooper I have ever seen. Coquina will drop a load just about anywhere away from the house, but Bear ALWAYS has to go behind a tree, a bush, or most scary, into the palmettos to poop usually with his back to me.

Never had a dog that was such a shy shi... well, you know.

So, he basically goes into the most likely rattlesnake places each time he poops. I use the leash to limit how far into the bush he goes for his constitutional.

I was home sick with a nasty sore throat and cold today, so we took more walks than normal. On our midday walk, Bear stopped to investigate a tiny clump of brush. Coquina carried on down the trail just a bit until the two of them had me straight armed like a cross with Coquina ahead and Bear behind.

I told Coquina to stay and turned to urge Bear to come on.

As I did, He jumped back and the buzz of a diamondback filled the air. Curious, he stepped forward, ears up, as the snake buzzed and struck.

The snake missed, partly because Bear had not regained his original position and partly because I came close to jerking Bear's head off via the leash.

It was WAY too close.

Ahead of me, Coquina heard the commotion and dashed back to Bear's side, so now I had both of them in the danger zone.

Luckily, Bear responded to "LEAVE IT!", (thank you Petsmart, puppy obedience school!)

I checked Bear thoroughly while the snake continued to buzz, and then ran them both back to the house where I checked him over and over again for any signs of a hit.

There was none and he was his usual frisky self at post walk treat time.

About 15 minutes after getting him back to 

the house ... AFTER I was sure he was fine, 

I went back into the woods with my Glock and located the snake. It was about 10 feet from where we had encountered him.

I wasn't in "live and let live" mode ...

Like the human death penalty laws, this wasn't about justice or prevention, it was about vengeance.

Simple angry vengeance.

The rattler had only done what instinctively, (and I would argue innocently) all rattlers do in defense, ... I know that. The rational me knows that.

I just wasn't in a rational mood at the moment.

Tonight, I can lie on the floor in the living room and rub this sleepy face,and more so than usual, I know how special that simple pleasure is.

SLOWMOrning

If you have a hard time getting going on a cold morning, ...consider the fence lizard.

 On any normal warm Florida day, these guys combine excellent camo with ninja-like speed to avoid capture. On an oak tree, they practically vanish due to their superbly adapted coloration.

If that doesn't work, they are experts at squirrelian scrimmaging to whatever side of the tree you are not on.

...BUT, catch them on a cold morning and their supereptilian powers are nullified.

I picked this one up cold and limp from under a bit of plywood that was lying on the ground. With chilled muscles that were below their working temperature, he was helpless.
I'm pretty sure my endothermic mammalian warmth felt delicious to him, because he was perfectly content to hug a finger and bask.

All of his coldoldruminicity gave me a chance to appreciate our similarities and differences.
 
My nails and his scales are made of the same stuff.

That hand and that arm has the same basic blueprint as mine:
Humerus -- Radius & Ulna -- Carpals -- Metacarpals -- Phalanges -- Nails.
Shared, but not identical DNA makes this handsome male (talking about the lizard) my cousin, but not my brother.
He's way better adapted to catching ants and other insects...while I'm better at say ... remodeling a house.

We're working on DNA in my Biology class and I can't help but think of my Bio students when I look at this lizard.

(Not because he just wanted to lie in the sun and bask)

They were working on the basic structure of DNA last week...poor things.
 My biology class is the last class of the day for them and my job is to take their tired brains into the most important chemical on the planet and have them walk away with a working knowledge of it's structure and the whole amazing process of replication, transcription, and translation.
We'll get there, but maybe we should start the class next week with that lizard face above and just try to appreciate that every shape,substance, color, fold, space, pattern, ... everything in that face is the result of DNA code ... 4 little bases arranged in infinite variety... it leaves me a little awestruck.
I hope that comes through in the lessons.

The fence lizard doesn't know about DNA, (neither did we not so long ago), he just knows my hand is warm and it is better to cling to it than not on this cold morning.

That gives me more time to admire his architecture.
The blue scales say, "I'm a male".
Inside, his body is warming up, both immediately from my 98.6 F, but also seasonally as the Florida Spring is not far away.
Soon it will be time to put those blue scales to use wooing the ladies.
The DNAmour gene will soon fire up and this loner will be chasing tail up and down the oaks here.

A slightly tighter grip in this picture as I could feel him becoming more active ... a signal that it was time to part.
At the rotting oak stump in the blueberry patch, I held my hand to the bark and released my grip.

He stayed.
In fact, he had to be scraped gently from my hand to the stump.
No lizardy affection there, just warmth,... I know this.
Still, it made me smile.