Highlights

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 read more

It qualifies

Today, as you undoubtedly know, is World Snake Day, and while you might think this is one of those crass bogus holidays that I make up to feature some convenient photos on hand, this is for realsies. Knowing that this was coming up, I went out to find some world snakes to feature, knowing that at the very least I was in the right geographic area (the world) to do so.


This is a northern read more

Love is in the weeds

Went over to the neighborhood pond tonight because the frogs were sounding off exuberantly while I was chasing another subject back home (which you’ll see soon.) By the time I wrapped up what I was already doing and gave the headlamp a quick charge, the frogs had quieted down a bit. A spider was the first thing I photographed, but the second thing that I captured was a pair of eyes watching read more

You’re a Grand Ol’ Tag

Oh great, you got the kid singing! I hope you’re happy now!

Oh, yeah, it’s January, isn’t it? That makes it time for the tag roundup. On your run-of-the-mill, everyday blog with, you know, real posts, tags just serve to help people (or search engines, or marketing bots) find ‘relevant’ content (like that’s a thing,) but here, they additionally serve as read more

Leftovers tonight

Clearing the folder of just a handful of photos that didn’t fit into any particular theme, and had too little story behind them.


While out at Goose Creek Game Lands near the coast (not very close at all to Goose Creel State Park,) my brother and I were on the edge of a large pool where at least two northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) were intent on the read more

More pleased than many would be

Trotted over to the neighborhood pond this evening to see if the sunset would pan out, and keep an eye open for wildlife, especially water snakes because it’s that time of the year. The sunset was total crud, but I was successful with one goal, anyway, finding a pair of northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) right smack in the path ahead of me. The light was fading fast but read more

Birds and snakes, an aeroplane…

… and Lenny Bruce is not afraid.

Now that I have that earworm firmly established, let’s get to the pics.


A few days back we got a ton of water dumped on us here in central NC, like most of the country I believe, right after temperatures had gotten above 25°c, then dropped precipitously (sorry) during and after the rains. Yesterday, with the sun out and the temperature read more

Those ugly signs

Nobody likes getting old, which means we deny the signs too often, trying to pretend it’s not happening to us, or not as fast as it is for others. But occasionally the evidence rears up and attempts to bite our noses off.

Back in August I was on an outing and spotted several snakes, considering myself pretty sharp-eyed for finding them, and featured the images herein. Yet just as I was going read more

Visibly different, part 32

This week we have another variation of the topic, as we see visibly different examples of a photo subject from just this past weekend, quite possibly the largest extremes that I have encountered locally – certainly the largest in a single day. We’ll start small.


I initially took this to be a juvenile ringnecked snake, but on examining the photos after returning, I was read more

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