So once again we fudge things a little, because this has only appeared here once identified (by Genus only) – yet a few years previously, I’d come across a recent hatching of spiders that I couldn’t pin down until after I posted about them – by the time someone at BugGuide.net provided the info, the newborns had dispersed. Both are trapdoor spiders, Genus Ummidia, and I would love to get more detail photos of them, specifically with their namesake trapdoor lairs.
If you’re not familiar with trapdoor spiders, they have an interesting way of hunting, Instead of wandering and ambush hunting like wolf and fishing spiders, or making a suspended web to capture flying insects like damn near all the rest, trapdoor spiders make a burrow, only they create a false lid for it out of debris held together with webbing, so the opening is perfectly camouflaged, while they also run web strands out of it across the ground by the entrance. They then lurk under the cover until something disturbs the strands, whereupon they pop out and seize their prey, often grasshoppers, crickets, and other such wandering insects. Which means they spend most of their time hidden under a little round hatch perhaps up to 20mm across, someplace on the forest floor, so finding their burrow can be next to impossible.
They also have a distinctive body shape, and while I’d only seen photos and video of them before, when I found this one wandering across the path, it immediately rang a bell, so I captured it within a film can, and once back home confirmed that it was indeed a trapdoor spider – take a close look at the body, chelicerae, and leg shapes if you’re inclined to try and spot one for yourself. While we’re here, also take a look at how the eyes are all clustered together on that little hump right in the front center of the cephalothorax.
This one was undeniably annoyed at my probing to get it to pose, and bit my stick with those chelicerae twice – this pose is exactly as menacing as it looks. They’re not terribly big, but certainly give the impression of being bigger just from looking badass.
And if I really want to capture behavior, I’m either going to have to do a meticulous search for the burrows and stake one out for dog knows how long, or capture one and convince it to make a burrow in a terrarium somehow – neither one seems easy. This specimen, if I remember right, I simply released out back and hoped to see again, which did not happen. Nor had I seen any sign of the entire brood from three years previously once they’d left the holly bush, so my work is cut out for me.
I certainly don’t have to look up that title to see if I’ve used it before…
Some time back, I featured a few photos of a jagged ambush bug (Genus Phymata) on one of the butterfly bushes (Buddleja davidii) out front, and I check from time to time to see if it’s still visible. I’ve now been finding one dependably on another of the bushes, and there’s no way to tell if it’s the same one or not – the separation of the bushes is not significant, but it’s still a serious trek for something this small that probably has to go all the way down to the ground and back up. Honestly, I’ve never seen them doing more than minor adjustments in position so I don’t know how ambulatory they can be.
Back on August 25th, my subject was displaying its capture.
The prey is likely a common green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata,) while you can see that the blooms on that particular flower spike are aging out – still, they were enough for both the ambush bug to feel it could feed effectively, and to attract the fly. What you can also see are the rudimentary wings of the ambush bug sticking out diagonally, indicating that this specimen is not yet an adult.
Unfortunately, in maneuvering for a better shooting position, I bumped another branch of the bush with the flash, barely setting up any motion, but it was enough to alarm the ambush bug into dropping its meal.
Noticeably bigger now than on previous photographic attempts, but still only about the size of a housefly – they don’t get much bigger regardless. I have to wonder what function those huge shoulders fulfill, but really, the entire anatomy of the jagged ambush bug is pretty flamboyant, the insect equivalent of a Jeepney.
Another illustration of the age of the flower spike – these are the last couple of viable blossoms on the tip, not providing any camouflage, but as we’ve seen it definitely works for the ambush bug.
Then an September 2nd, after some horrendous rains, we find that this one’s still holding fast on the exact same spike, despite the blossoms now being completely dead.
However, there was one distinct difference, and that was in the overall appearance of the specimen, faintly visible here but I quickly changed angles and magnification for a better illustration.
You’re looking down on it from the top here, head towards the lower left. If it hadn’t been in exactly the same location, I would easily have suspected this was a different individual, but in the intervening time it molted into final instar, the adult phase with wings, and gained better camouflage against the dead flowers, though this strikes me as both a bit late and unnecessary, given its prowess in capturing meals with no camouflage at all. The perfectly centered raindrop is a nice touch though…
It was still lightly raining as I took these, with a vigorous downpour not long past, but this guy chose not to even move to the underside of the flowers for better shelter. I find it curious that the eyes are no longer the same color as the rest of it, and haven’t the faintest idea why this might be.
Five hours later, it had dried out a bit, and somehow my subject snagged another bottle fly.
Again, these are quite small, and the fly initially escaped my attention as it blended in with the dead flowers. But we have this small enigma not only of the ambush bug continuing to stake out dead flowers, but successfully too. It started me thinking, and I stopped typing this post to do a bit of research that failed to confirm my suspicions. I wondered if the elaborate shape of the ambush bug, along with its coloration (and potentially any scent it might emit?) served to actually attract the fly, since it seems clear that the flowers shouldn’t be anymore. There is no mention of this at all anywhere that I looked, but it might explain the distinctive body shape and the failure to tuck in amongst the blossoms and blend in, much less go where the blossoms were healthy – you have to admit, the dorsal view is more than suggestive of a flower, though none that I’m familiar with. So if you see me in the yard apparently trying to sniff dead flowers, you’ll at least know that I’m engaged in important research.
Those were the conditions at Mason Farm Biological Reserve the other morning, a sunrise session with the Immortal (So Far) Mr Bugg. The temperatures had finally been dropping overnight, becoming actually cool, and this produced some fog in low-lying areas.
Very specific areas, to be honest; while the fog could be seen to extend to the plants right in front of us, an adjacent field on the other side of a narrow treeline showed none at all, though still plenty of dew. My guess is somehow, the faintly different weeds and undergrowth within that field contained or produced slightly more warmth – either that or the surrounding trees were closer and kept the faint breeze from dissipating the heat from the previous day. This did mean that we backtracked to the first field above right as the sun was rising, because of course.
This may or may not be a variety of rice bug (Genus Stenocoris) – I’d found one in the same location (well, not exactly, but within a few hundred meters) once before, though I didn’t potentially identify it until later, and didn’t collect one either time to do precise identification – it’s just here to illustrate the conditions. Mostly, however, it was the spiderwebs that served that purpose.
We’re going to see more of these, because there wasn’t a lot else to shoot, and you’ve already seen a partridge pea which made up a lot of the landscape. Yet we were there in part for the sun, and it did arrive.
Due to the proximity of the trees, this was distinctly after ‘astronomical sunrise,’ but then again, that’s the case virtually everywhere but on the ocean – things stick up of the ground, even the ground, routinely. In this case though, the trees created their own ‘atmospheric’ effects of crepuscular rays, only very local ones instead of being many kilometers away when caused by clouds or even mountains, and the fog made these supremely visible. There was even a hint of rainbow diffraction, but the camera didn’t capture the subtle blue edges well at all. I’ll remember to play with White Balance the next time I witness this, and see if that works to capture more of the range of colors.
The rays were so localized that you could walk a few steps and see them shift around you, though it was dispersing the fog faster than the sun was rising high enough to reach most of the weeds and thus the webs that appeared every couple of meters – dew is really good about revealing how many spiders there are in any given location.
Just, you know, a couple, here and there…
I occasionally played around with being fartsy, but didn’t find a lot of compositions with potential – too much background clutter, of course, and a lot of the better-looking webs were deeper in the undergrowth, requiring slogging through the waist-high soaking weeds and no small number of thorny bushes, and my heart wasn’t in it that morning. But I still managed a couple.
Mason Farm is a long loop, and so this leg showed webs that were primarily backlit by the rising sun – for reasons unknown, there weren’t as many webs, and not as much dew, on the other side of the trail where the sun would have been at our backs. Also, we had to look hard to find webs that even seemed occupied, and while I can easily believe the spiders abandoned the webs when the dew made insect capture nearly impossible, I also wasn’t finding them in their typical daytime hiding spots, at the upper anchor points for the web itself on the weeds and trees. But a couple were occupied.
At times, some of the cooler webs could be reached without too much difficulty, and since this one was both dynamically-shaped and occupied, I made the effort here. But we need a closer look at that maker:
While far from the size of some spiders to be found, this one was still large enough to be more than a little bead in the center of the web. I suspect this is an immature banded argiope (Argiope trifasciata,) but due to surrounding weeds, I didn’t get a good dorsal view, plus I wanted the dew anyway, and a dorsal view would have eradicated the shape of the web.
About halfway along the loop, the trails enters a forested section which has even fewer photo opportunities, but does have a section of boardwalk that passes through a boggy region. Mr Bugg asked if beavers would be in the area, and I was initially skeptical based on it being little more than swampland, but then immediately spotted some telltale sheared off saplings, though definitely not from this year. Only a minute later, we found a small tree fallen across the boardwalk.
I have to say that there were trees down everywhere, though all but this one that had crossed the trail had been cut away by maintenance crews – storms had done their share of dropping old trees within the Reserve. This one, however, was not the victim of a storm:
Clearly beaver work, and you can see some of the bark stripped from the trunk – beavers eat the bark, leaves, and smaller branches of select trees, in this case an American sweetgum (Liquidamber styraciflua.) I would judge this fall was, at most, two days old. Mason Farm is not open at night so hanging out to try and see the beavers isn’t an option here.
Out on the other side of the loop, we could now find some webs with the sun at our backs, still laden with dew, and I could do a short video clip of the diffraction from the drops, exactly the same as how rainbows appear, though I could change position easier:
It only occurred to me as I was prepping this video for upload that I could have experimented a little, moving up and down as well, and even in a circle, to demonstrate the effect more, but maybe next time.
And finally, a small collection of colorful porcelain berries (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata,) which I specifically looked for because they only seem to grow in one particular section of the Reserve.
These are not native to the US and I believe they’re considered invasive, but they don’t seem to be trying to spread from this spot at least – I might have to try and establish some at Walkabout Estates, because they’re a nice splash of color, and blues that usually aren’t found too often.
Overall, however, that was about it – no birds, no mantids, no turtles, and very few flowers. Just dew and fog. We’ve had better outings to the same location, but that’s the way it goes most of the time with nature photography anyway – you can’t count on conditions or subjects, and some days they just aren’t available. And another time, you shoot hundreds of frames in the same locale. You take it as it comes.
This is part two of the sordid mess; part one can be found here.
So with the design of the deck largely locked down, we had two main challenges, which don’t seem like they should be hard: creating games for the deck, and finding a name for it. Dan Palmer already had a few games past the conceptual stage and started play-testing a couple, but such things need refinement to find any issues, and they also need to be written out in clear form, easy to interpret and explain to the other players. If you’ve never tried this, I call tell you that it’s a lot harder than it seems, and writing clear, concise game rules is a skill that neither of us are adept at. I was probably a bit of a thorn in Dan’s side, in that I’m not fond of learning games through instructions in the first place, I don’t know why, and I kept kicking things back to him with various comments about reducing text and clarifying goals. I won’t say that, at this point, we have the rules where they ‘should’ be (whatever definition of that applies,) but they’re better than the first drafts for sure.
There’s also play-testing, and this was problematic for both of us. I have extremely limited access to people who want to try card games, and in nine months managed two or three sessions of a round or two each, plus my playing alone as multiple players, and that was it. Dan had an advantage while college was in session in that he was connected to a group of gamers and could occasionally get a game into play, and in fact it was because of this that we received our first real encouragement. Some weeks after a test round, Dan was contacted by one of the players asking him where he’d gotten the deck, since the player had been all over the internet trying to get his own copy and had come up blank; no surprise, since it wasn’t in production yet. But it was great to hear both that he wanted one, and that he thought it was actually a professional product.
Which kind of segues into the second aspect, which was what to name it. There are a lot of considerations here, among them that it be unique and not already copyrighted (or too close to something that was,) that it not have undue associations, and that it described the deck in a useful and preferably clever manner. This went on for a surprisingly long time, but it’s where I get to relate the amusing interchange that took place over the course of several weeks.
Having noticed that all of Dan’s games (there were now several) began with the letter ‘C,’ I impishly suggested that we name it “C-Word.”
“I’m not naming the deck, ‘C-Word,'” Dan maintained strenuously.
“No, but we call it, ‘Seaward,’ instead – that’s not dirty,” I protested.
“But then we have to explain what it means,” Dan returned, “otherwise it makes no sense.”
“So we give the meaning someplace in the rulebook. After all, the games do all start with ‘C,'” I maintained.
“I’m not naming the deck, ‘Seaward,'” Dan semi-repeated [this is all paraphrased of course, but you get the gist.]
Nonetheless, I continued to refer to it as the Seaward deck, even giving that name to the resource folder on my computer. Dan on the other hand, at a loss when he needed to refer to it, simply began calling it the, “Benels Deck,” a play on my last name, so much so that his play-testing group started referring to it that way. There wasn’t a chance that we’d keep this of course, since it failed to meet any of the criteria save for being unique. Plus I’d had enough wordplay on my name in school (imagine that,) even though this was innocuous.
We rejected a couple of inside jokes, and I recall at one point suggesting “Sea Urchin” – it was an animal with nine unique letters, which references the categories within the deck, plus it worked “sea” back in there. This was quashed quickly when we found it was already an entry in Urban Dictionary – not copyrighted, but the association wasn’t ideal. We also both had a go at using the first letters of all of the categories within the deck: R, G, B, F, P, H, C, S, T. You’ll notice a shortage of vowels in there, so obviously we couldn’t use just those letters (unless we went with Welsh,) but they never produced a useful, even made up, name anyway.
It was getting down to the wire: the conference was in a few weeks, and we wanted to have a reference to some of the games available as a link; we ended up producing a temporary sub-domain just to have some stuff handy for the people who were reading the paper before the conference. I should explain in better detail: Dan had written a paper on the dimensions and possibilities of the deck for this year’s Bridges Conference on mathematical connections in art, music, architecture, and culture. He had attended last year’s and felt this would be a good fit. The paper was accepted, and the comments on it were encouraging, but this meant that we had to be more prepared than we were, and this is part of the fun of game design. You might have a good idea, but what do you do with it? Crowd-funding? Gain the interest of a major production company? Market it yourself (e.g., Etsy)? People expect games to have rulebooks and promotional materials and slick little boxes and even, hard as it may be to believe, names, and we had none of that.
In the eleventh hour, Dan suggested “Gnomon” as the name choice, and it stuck. A gnomon is a three-dimensional representation, both as a shaft or column rising from a plane (which is why the shadow-casting piece of a sundial is named that,) and as the pointer within 3D software that helps represent and indicate the third dimension within the confines of a computer screen. Moreover, it wasn’t taken by anyone including web domains, had no bad associations that we ever found, and was unique. Within two days, we had the domain secured and the graphics of the tuck box for the new decks designed and ready to print. This was less than a month before the conference and we needed two weeks lead time to get a new run of cards printed.
Meanwhile, I was amusing myself by attempting some video, primarily of a play-through of one of the games, as a demo and proof-of-concept. It wouldn’t be for the conference, but successful videos would serve as promotional material, be available to help explain the rules, and would be necessary if we were to go the crowd-funding route. Even setting this up was a little tricky, since the camera had to have a clear and focused view of the entire playing field, and the lighting had to be adequate and even enough while not throwing glare from the surfaces of the cards; thankfully I had a heavy-duty lightstand and lateral arm to suspend the camera directly over the playing surface. It became clear, as suspected, that one-camera, one-take wasn’t going to work; we’d need close-ups from time to time, and separate audio voiceover was going to be a lot cleaner and smoother (especially when I was forgetting how certain rules went as I was dealing in front of the camera.)
Meanwhile, the new order of card decks with the tuck boxes had arrived, and they looked great – one could, if they squinted, almost believe that we knew what we were doing. And so they were available at the conference, for both demonstrations and sales, of which we made a few. Unfortunately, due to demands on time for both Dan and I, further progress is stalled for the moment – I expect to be able to do more after September at least, but for Dan it will be when he can squeak out a few minutes amongst other tasks. Still, we’re this far along and it isn’t going to stop now. Look for Gnomon at your local game retailer, oh, say, this time next year? Perfect for christmas buying, or all those people you know whose birthday is in September. And if you want one sooner, contact us.
Gnomon deck in its new tuck box, with a custom 3D-printed hard case
Boy, I’m late! To all those readers who came here seeking the end-of-month abstract to view over their morning coffee or first dump, I apologize. It remains a crazy time here, and again, more will be revealed later on.
So we’ll have four, count ’em, four abstracts. It probably would be better if we went with just one good abstract, but I think we’ve determined that I only stumble upon those rather than produce them on demand. Plus I’m rarely thinking in those terms when out shooting anyway.
But since there were three outings last week, we’ll do one for each of those, plus a local, which comes first.
This one was intentional, as I spotted it in The Jungle when looking for critters, so I did a quick couple of frames. We hadn’t had rain in two weeks at that point, so this is only dew.
This was from the Eno River, which was amazingly slow and produced too few photos for the time spent. This is, among many other things, an orange jewelweed flower (Impatiens capensis) shot with intentionally short focus – this was mid-afternoon so the dew was long gone by this point.
Next up we have Duke Forest and New Hope Creek, which was also disturbingly bereft of photo subjects, so I dragged the shutter a little to soften the water, and managed to keep the camera steady enough to maintain sharpness of the maple leaf. I probably should have boosted saturation for this one, but the weak colors convey the mood better I think.
Mason Farm Biological Reserve was easily the most productive, and also the most humid – there was low-lying fog in selective patches before sunrise, and we made the most of it. More of those photos will be along eventually – today was actually supposed to be my day for catching up a little, then The Girlfriend’s flight out to Maine was bumped a full day back, screwing things up royally, and I have to be up at an ungodly hour (aren’t they all?) again tomorrow to get her to the airport. As my friend observed, flying (at least commercially in the US) certainly sucks anymore.
There was supposed to be a different holiday in here today, but we can only have one holiday per day, according to the International Rules of Blog Holidays, and we’re forced to go with this one, which is nowhere near as much fun. I’m talking about Don’t Make The Big Change You Were Planning To Make Because Of A Pond Day… which, now that I think about it, can actually apply in two ways, and they’re both correct in this case. Kinda.
You are no doubt looking for an explanation of this, and you’re just going to have to keep looking on your own. Or wait for a little while, because it will become clear before next month is out – all in due time, as they say, just to be annoying because such calls for patience are never greeted with enthusiasm. “Oh, boy, I have to temper my excitement for an undisclosed period of time until Al stops being mysterious? I can’t wai- oh. I guess I’m gonna have to. But fuck you Al.”
Yes, that’s the pond in question up there, though in and of itself, it’s innocent, or at least its guilt cannot be established to a reasonable extent. It’s cool, it’s cool – this will all be resolved in a bit, and then we can can go into some nice new stuff here.
In the meantime, a stray image from an outing this past weekend, of which more images will be along when I get the chance to write them up better, perhaps within the day. This is a partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata,) which is fairly abundant at Mason Farm Biological Reserve but only occasionally seen elsewhere; the leaves bear a strong resemblance to mimosa trees, but that’s as far as the resemblance goes, since these are low bushes and the flowers are entirely different (mimosas are cooler.)
While first featured here seven years (and two weeks) ago in another of my numbered weekly posts, the original slide is older than that, dating from 2005. It is a captive shot of course, since I’ve never been to South America where such reptiles hail from, but believe me, I’d be very interested in seeing a place where snakes hail. This is an emerald tree boa (Corallus caninus,) and was an exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. Still might be.
Or it might not, even if it’s still there. Four years after I took this image, a new species was introduced based on geographic and morphological differences, the Amazon Basin emerald tree boa (Corallus batesii.) I’m not sure which this is, and I certainly don’t have a full-body shot for better comparison, but based on a characteristic listed by Wikipedia, C. batesii has smaller snout scales – and this one appears to have smaller scales than one of the images of the emerald tree boa they show. So I might have never featured the emerald tree boa, only the Amazon Basin emerald tree boa.
Which means that C. caninus is one of quite a few (at least half a dozen) species that I have not yet featured within a post. I mean, we’ve seen this image once before (well, it’s been more than that for me,) but what have we actually seen? Are we looking at an emerald tree boa, or simply a collection of colored dots that bears some resemblance to one if you account for two-dimensionality and monitor calibration? Are you, the reader, even there? These questions will likely remain unanswered, and are too philosophical to bother with anyway…
It’s been far too busy a day today, and while I have numerous photos to do something with, I have no energy nor motivation to do so. But we can’t miss Monster’s anniversay, so wish her a happy fifth from the day we brought her home from living in a parking lot.
If you want more details, you’ll have to use your internet savvy to find them – which shouldn’t be too hard, and you won’t even have to leave the site. This was taken this very morning as I returned from an outing – one of these days I’ll procure some video of her being manic, because this mellow look gives entirely the wrong impression.
But since there’s little else to say about it, I’ll include another image from today, keeping tabs on the sunspot activity, because I can now. No big ones, but plenty of little ones, anyway.
At present, these don’t seem to be producing too much Auroral activity, don’t ask me why, but I’m trying to monitor it. I’m a little annoyed with myself for not feeling well on the one night that we had something visible from North Carolina, but the season continues for another year or two at least, so we’ll see.
Only a handful of shots from yesterday, from the front walk at Walkabout Estates.
In going past one of the butterfly bushes, I noticed a sudden movement from the leaves, which is the best telltale if you notice it and pay attention. Eventually, I saw further activity as an adult Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) became evident, slinking up the branches. I did a few frames, but it seemed clear that the anole wanted to bask, so I went in search of other subjects.
On passing back through, I saw another flash of movement, this time from the vinca leaves under the Japanese maple that was immediately adjacent to the butterfly bush – and the anole saw it too, craning its head over to watch beneath.
It took a little wait and a small change in position, but eventually I saw who the culprit was this time: the juvenile five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) that lives in that area, who came up onto its favorite stump to bask.
I could get them both in the frame but nowhere near having both in focus, no matter what aperture I used – there’s a limit, especially when working close to a subject. As for the skink, between my movements and likely noticing the anole on the branch above, it soon decided to go under cover again, and the anole relaxed and settled itself in more comfortably for a nap in the sun.
The anole clearly knew that I was close, and in fact I was gently disturbing the other branches of the same bush as I was leaning in for a clear and photogenic angle, but it wasn’t too concerned as long as I moved slowly, so I managed a cute portrait. “This is a nice branch…”
After nightfall, I was on patrol, trying not to disturb the rabbit again (and succeeding – it’s surprisingly mellow,) when I came across what was likely the same anole, this time fast asleep on the diamond spire gardenia bush (Gardenia hybrid ‘Leefive’ PPIP) about a meter from that butterfly bush. The tiny juvenile anoles sleeping on the same bush have produced two of the cutest photos that I have of them, but I hadn’t seen an adult using it until last night. And the position was curious, but couldn’t be passed up.
Yep, it’s sleeping on one cluster of leaves, with its head pillowed on another across the gap, from a different branch even. Look carefully into the shadows beneath, right by the front toes you can see easily, and you’ll find the toes on the other foot almost lost in shadow.
Now, you know what’s amusing? While I was getting these frames, the flash unit slipped on the flexible arm that holds it, swinging down and hitting the top of the branch that the anole was sleeping on, causing that to swing back and forth gently, away from the other where the head is resting. You’d think that a) the anole’s head would suddenly drop downward, and b) that it would awaken and bolt for cover, but neither happened. Its head stayed put in midair before coming back to rest against the leaf as the oscillating branch died down, and the anole simply opened its eye for a moment, puzzled, but didn’t otherwise move. Way more luck than I deserved.
But oh no, while we’re here we’re going in close on that head, because this is the best part of these little guys.
The entire head of this anole is 12mm or less, so figure out for yourself how tiny those scales get, especially around the eyes. And the color palette is great! I’m glad that these guys got established in the yard after we moved here – not from any efforts of mine, save for ensuring that there was a variety of plants for them, but they appeared all on their own. And I’m taking advantage of that…
I mean, not terribly high, but these were from yesterday’s outing, which was far quieter than it should have been.
Going along the edge of New Hope Creek in Duke Forest yesterday, we heard a plop! not far away, which I took to be a turtle abandoning its basking spot on a log at our approach. Moments later, there was a PLOP! from the same direction, telling us that another had dropped into the water from a greater height. We found the branch, and a third basking turtle was still in view:
This is either a variety of mud or musk turtle, I’m not bothering to try and determine which; suffice to say they’re the size and shape of a hand grenade, 10-12 cm in length. This is important.
I’ve seen these guys climb a decent distance from the water, unlike the sliders and painted turtles that are so prevalent around here, which prefer either half-submerged trunks or shallow riverbanks. Mud and musk turtles like to get a bit higher, for reasons unknown.
A lot higher – that’s about 2 meters or so from the water’s surface. I suspected this one was asleep, since it never reacted to our presence, but looking at the images afterward, it appeared quite aware of our presence – just reluctant to give up its hard-earned perch, perhaps.
The banks of the creek showed plenty of evidence that the water level and flow had been considerably higher recently, and may have scoured the creek of most of the prime basking spots. There were numerous logjams on the banks well out of the water, and even a lot of the rocks on the banks were uneven and loose – it might have been one hell of a flow at one point. This may have been responsible, too, for the scarcity of water snakes in an area that typically featured lots of them. In fact, during the entire outing, we only saw one:
This northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) had been out on the rocks as we approached, but quickly sought shelter – I only got a couple frames as it slipped out of sight, enough to positively identify it, but then found it by crouching down and peering into the dark crevices on the opposite side of the rock that it had disappeared beneath, with the help of my omnipresent pocket flashlight. It took a few frames to get the camera flash in there enough, and focus is slightly off, but I got the face at least. This was a big specimen, and had no reason to be shy at all.
Or, maybe it did. You can see how the scales on the closet coil to us seem stretched out, and this might be evidence of a recent large meal which the snake was trying to peacefully digest. The nights have started getting cooler now, so snakes will be out at least in the morning to absorb the warmth of the sunlight for energy to digest their meals, which is why people start seeing them out on the roads and rocks and sidewalks in the spring and fall – during high summer, the nights never get cold enough to warrant needing the extra energy. As always, just leave them be – they have no interest in doing anything to anybody over 15cm tall.
And if I really want to capture behavior, I’m either going to have to do a meticulous search for the burrows and stake one out for dog knows how long, or capture one and convince it to make a burrow in a terrarium somehow – neither one seems easy. This specimen, if I remember right, I simply released out back and hoped to see again, which did not happen. Nor had I seen any sign of the entire brood from three years previously once they’d left the holly bush, so my work is cut out for me.
In the eleventh hour, Dan suggested “Gnomon” as the name choice, and it stuck. A gnomon is a three-dimensional representation, both as a shaft or column rising from a plane (which is why the shadow-casting piece of a sundial is named that,) and as the pointer within 3D software that helps represent and indicate the third dimension within the confines of a computer screen. Moreover, it wasn’t taken by anyone including web domains, had no bad associations that we ever found, and was unique. Within two days, we had the domain secured and the graphics of the tuck box for the new decks designed and ready to print. This was less than a month before the conference and we needed two weeks lead time to get a new run of cards printed.
