When a snake gets mad

Depends on the species on how dangerous a mad one can be. Still, snakes don't scare me. So when I spotted a long rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus) stretched across the ground in our front yard, I dropped my broom and immediately picked it up. Naturally, I wanted to show my find to James.

It, of course, did not share the same goal. It wanted out of my hands NOW. Stubbornly, I held onto it while James dashed off for his camera. In the meantime, the green snake writhed and turned and struggled to get away from me. Then....

...it latched onto my index finger. HARD! "Does that hurt?" James asked, alarmed. No, I replied. The snake's jaws squeezed tighter around my finger. "Are you OK? Are you sure?" James asked. I nodded. 

"I'm taking it to the back yard," I added. Tight as a vice grip, the snake held on.
 

I figured as soon as I let go of the mad snake, it'd let go of me. Fair trade off. Gently, I set it down in the turk's cap. Sure enough, the snake released my finger and slithered up a branch. "I'm sorry!" I said. It just glared at me.
 

A bit later, I returned to the turk's cap, where I found the snake, looking a bit bewildered, wound atop some leafy branches. "I'm going to move you," I said, "real fast." Which I did. Before it could find another finger, I transferred my green friend to an elbow-bush thicket a few yards away. Much better! The thick foliage completely concealed the snake. I couldn't see one sign of it. 

But I bet it saw me. And I bet it was still mad. 

At me.

The mob mentality

Just yesterday, I shoved away from my desk and marched outside to fuss at a LOUD-MOUTHED juvenile mockingbird. I was trying to work, but I kept hearing it SCREECH SCREECH SCREECH. When I stepped outside the garage, I spotted it on the front porch walk, hopping beneath the Texas lantana. Mom or Dad was nearby, trying to scare up an insect for lunch. When everyone saw me, they flew off.

Peace. Finally.

James was surprised that I heard the ruckus from in my office. He didn't hear a thing at the dining room table. 

Today, however, HE heard a ruckus, and I didn't.

"C'mere!" he told me from the hallway. "There's a snake up in the trees!"

We walked outside to the front yard, and James pointed at the rat snake, high in the live oak branches. All around, an army of birds shrieked and yelled...titmice, mockingbirds, cardinals, wrens, blue jays, woodpeckers. It's a bird behavior called "mobbing." Look in the bottom left hand corner of the photo above, and you can just make out a bird and its tail, perched on a branch. The snake's barely visible in the middle of the photo.

Even the white-winged doves were upset. They gathered in some dead pecan branches in the back yard.

This female northern cardinal was ready to put up her dukes.

See the rat snake's head? You have to look hard in the middle of the photo.

Here's the same photo, cropped in closer so you can see the snake.

After a short while, the ruckus died down. But this female house finch still didn't want to give up!

"Look down, lady!"

Frogfruit

Yesterday morning, I had some free time before our monthly Texas Master Naturalist meeting in Kingsland. So I grabbed my camera and headed outside to shoot wildflowers. Frogfruit, lantana in the front yard. American beautyberry in the back.

Lantana

I was leaning over the beautyberry, trying to focus on a bee, when I heard a chickadee fussing behind me. I turned around and found the little bird, perched mid way down our chain-link fence. A titmouse showed up, too. They both seemed bothered about something. I glanced around but didn't see anything. So I went back to shooting the beautyberry.

However, the chickadee still fussed at me. A house finch landed on an oak branch over me. Maybe a baby bird's on the ground? I glanced around some more. Nothing.

Finally, I walked a ways down a flower bed that parallels the fence, still looking around. Nothing. As I stood there, perplexed, a juvenile robin landed atop the fence with its back to me. For several seconds, it looked straight down. And I mean STRAIGHT DOWN at the ground! 


FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, LOOK DOWN, LADY! LOOK DOWN!

"OK, OK!" I laughed. "I'll look some more!"

I walked over to our gate and leaned against the fence, looking hard all over the ground on both sides of the our fence. 

OH! NOW I GET IT!

American beautyberry

There on the ground, very still and well camouflaged, lay an eastern hognose snake! I snapped a quick photo and then hollered for James.

You can see why I kept missing this snake on the ground...

Don't get freaked out, but we were excited to find this guy! He (or she?) may be one and the same that a friend in our neighborhood gave us several years ago. This is the first time we've seen a hognose since releasing that one in September 2009.

He's flattening out....

 Eastern hognose snakes (Heterodon platirhinos) act deadly but are nonvenomous. Their defensive behavior includes: puffing up and hissing like an adder, lunging like an adder, convulsing and playing dead, and even pooping. 

I'm a deadly cobra...get away from me. Ha, we knew better!

After a brief visit, our hognose friend slithered into a nearby brush pile. I'm sure the birds aren't happy with me, but diversity's a good thing to have in a Texas Wildscape.

 

 

Snakes, wildflowers and insects

Texas blind snake (Leptotyphlops dulcis)

Last Saturday, James put in a new flower bed in the back yard while I potted up volunteers to give away. When he was moving rocks, he came upon several Texas blind snakes, hiding within a rock's holes. I snapped some photos, then we released them beneath the turk's cap, where they quickly slithered into the mulch and leaf debris. Don't worry–they're completely harmless!  

(Thanks to reader Blake Hendon for correcting the ID of this snake!!!)

Bee (Anthophora sp.) resting on an 'Indigo Spires' leaf.

Queens and monarchs are enjoying the blue mistflowers.

Wildflowers in our meadow:

Silver-leaf nightshade with a colorful beetle

Silver dwarf morning-glory (Evolvulus sericeus)

Texas bindweed

Fineleaf four-nerved daisy (Tetraneuris linearifolia var. linearifolia)

Afternoon snake break

Don't mess with me, folks!

Awhile ago, the front door bell rang madly several times. I ran to see who was there. "GET YOUR CAMERA!" James hollered (he'd already dashed back out to the front yard). Which I did as fast as I could. Look what he found while mowing! A rat snake had ambled across the street from an undeveloped (wonderful) tract of property. 

This guy did NOT like being handled.

"You're not choking him, are you?" I asked James. He assured me that he was not. Well, I'm sure I wouldn't like being held by the neck either!

I followed him through the cedar sage and irises. See his tongue?

Enough's enough. He decided to leave.

He headed up the live oak. Rat snakes are expert climbers.

He went UP.

I asked James to stand there for some perspective on height (I had on my macro lens and couldn't shoot a full image). This live oak is huge and old.

He had to be 20 or so feet up.

Then he slithered along a horizontal limb.

He found a hole in the limb....

...and went inside....

....length by length...

...until just a tip showed. Finally, the rat snake completely vanished! "Hope there wasn't anyone in there sleeping," I said. Ah, nature!

Adventures here in our Wildscape

BEAUTIFUL DAY! Thank you, Lord! I took my camera outside, and it was just one adventure after another in our lovely Wildscape!

 

James moved "furniture" around, namely our concrete bench.

It's amazing what lives UNDER ROCKS. James pointed out this pseudoscorpion. He was a little booger to photograph because he wouldn't stand still. I was going to delete this photo, then I spotted the little spider lurking on the side of the rock. See it?

Under one big rock, we saw these larvae, likely an ant species. James wanted to go fetch killing powder, but I asked him nicely to hold off.

Then I saw this little rough earth snake, which had also been living under the rock. After I snapped a few frames, it slithered down into the leaf debris.

I believe this is wild poinsettia (Euphorbia heterophylla).

An orange sulphur (Colias eurytheme)

You just never know what's lurking among the green leaves. I spotted this green crab spider, poised and ready to grab a passing meal.

I saw something buzzing over the mulch in our back yard garden and managed to get one good shot of this scarab beetle. Perhaps Euphoria inda? 

The coral honeysuckle has been blooming a little.

And the spiderwort 'Purple' is about to burst with blooms!