It’s not, really, but closer to that than, say, a parenting blog – man, even typing that makes me itch.
Anyway, a couple photos from last evening, since it’s been a few days without a post. Which is amusing, because in the earlier days, it might be a month or more between posts, and now, I had the same number of posts as the days in May – four days ago. I’m a little behind now, but it’s not about the numbers anyway.
At the neighborhood pond, I’ve been seeing a green heron (Butorides virescens) in the same spot for a few days now, though I admittedly have only been there in the evening. There’s a nest well above the spot, so I suspect this is a juvenile that came from that nest and doesn’t feel comfortable flying off yet, but that’s only guesswork. I did see a pair hanging out together, back while I was doing beaver video, but for the past couple of evenings it’s been only one. I need to dedicate more time to observing them.
We got horrendous rains yesterday, and the pond was flooding its banks significantly. Out in the middle, I spotted something moving through the water at a decent clip, too small to be anything else but a snake.
While there is not enough detail in any of my images to differentiate the two species that look similar, I’ve only ever seen northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) on the pond so I’m going with that. I got the feeling that the higher water had flushed it from its normal burrow, but it certainly seemed to be heading towards the overflow area with a purpose, which I interrupted by following it from shore; I was well distant, but perhaps too obvious in my keeping pace, and it soon dove and vanished. This image bears a closer look.
Just so you know, the original above this is full-frame and shot at 600mm, so it was obviously not ‘close’ – I’m a little surprised that it appeared to spook. I was trying to see if it was going to swim right out with the overflow (which was perhaps ten meters wide) since the snake seemed to be heading right in that direction, but it never reappeared after the dive and I’m guessing that it ducked into the weeds. I know enough of the habits of the water snakes to know that, once they dive, they typically reappear close to the water’s edge in an area of decent cover, where they can observe without being seen, and this one had plenty of choices – it was in the same area as the closer beaver clips in the previous post.
That’s all for now, but I’ll be chasing more post material soon enough.