On Monday morning, May 5, I was walking to the train station to go to work. I was right around the corner from my house (.3 of a mile, roughly), being as observant as I usually am when walking. In other words, years of field herping has me trained to look down.
I saw a yellow striped body in the leaf litter in front of the front porch of the house. A garter!!! What the fuck? I was on a busy avenue with two lanes of traffic on either side. I couldn't believe there was a garter right there!
After taking the first picture, I noticed that the snake seemed to be unusually long, and seemed to have a tail that got thin and then got fat again...WHAT?
Hey! There's a second snake there!
Then I took another look at them and noticed the size difference, and I began to understand what they were doing in warm sunlight. They had just enjoyed, or were going to enjoy, some morning nookie.
I didn't touch the larger female, but I hadn't gotten a decent photo of the smaller male yet, so I picked him up for a photo shoot.
What an awesome way to start the work week!!! Usually my only chance of herping during the week is if Mike and I decide to hit a local place when I get home.
I went herpless until Thursday morning. Again, I was on my way to work, and I was in front of the condo complex next door to us. I must have developed some really keen eyes for seeing out-of-place things, because on the sidewalk was something small and, unfortunately, quite dead.
Not an awesome way to start the day, except for the fact that it's the closest to my home that I have ever seen ANY herp that we don't own. I know it doesn't mean much to the average person reading this blog, but we thought our grounds were too kept up and landscaped for their to be any Dekay's on them. The grounds next door are kept up just as nicely. I have a good idea now where they might hide on our property, and will need to investigate this.
(On a side note, we were hanging out with friends on Friday night, and my friend Lisa told me, "I think I drove past you when you were photographing something on the ground." We all got a good laugh about my photographing dead snakes.)
(On another side note, Mike just walked past me, looked at the screen, and said, "Awwwww, you're posting dead things!". He hates when I do this.)
The next pictures have living things, but the pics are still tragic. They are also shitty, because the zoom on my cell phone isn't great.
The same day, I decided to talk a walk by the Charles River at lunch. There is a part that branches off it called the "Storrow Drive Lagoon" that I had seen a turtle in a few weeks ago. It was beautiful and sunny out, so I thought I'd look for it again.
I did see a red-eared slider not far from where I had seen one before. A teenager had pointed it out to some girls he was with, and I over heard. I tried to get a picture, but the girls started screaming, "A TURTLE???? OMG IT'S SO CUTE!!!" If you know turtles, you know that they have pretty good hearing and they are in general VERY alert. As soon as they know you've noticed them, they are gone. This turtle must have felt like the Beatles, and he cut through a limousine to hop off his rock into the water.
This is the best I could do with a picture. I told you these pictures were shitty, right?
He seemed to be going toward the other side of the lagoon, and I had to start heading back to work, so I crossed the bridge and started walking back. A man was watching him, and we started talking about turtles and how awesome they are. He told me that there was a "marsh spot" near the concrete steps where they hang out often. I headed that way to look.
I think I saw 8 or 9 red-eared sliders and 3 painted turtles over there, basking among the reeds and trash. These are the less shitty pictures.
Ugh. The amount of trash in these pictures makes me embarrassed to be a human. What's even worse is that this particular area has been cleaned up quite significantly in the past 20-25 years. Worse even still, most of the red-eared sliders here are discarded pet, and others are the offspring of discarded pets. This is the most red-eared I've seen in any body of water. Ugh again.
On a happier note, Mike will be back blogging soon and won't post dead things or things basking in trash. I'm the morbid creeper who does that shit.
Fantastic write-up, if a little foul-mouthed! ;)
ReplyDeleteI will soon be posting that gore picture of the Water Snake eating the Bullfrog, even though I don't like the pic. Nature ain't always pretty!