{"id":34363,"date":"2023-05-08T00:09:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T04:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=34363"},"modified":"2023-05-08T00:09:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T04:09:46","slug":"more-pleased-than-many-would-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2023\/05\/more-pleased-than-many-would-be\/","title":{"rendered":"More pleased than many would be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;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 (<em>Nerodia sipedon sipedon<\/em>) right smack in the path ahead of me. The light was fading fast but still sufficient for a couple of brief video clips, so&#8230;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;\">\n<div style=\"padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/824629910?h=87c550a9a6&amp;badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" title=\"Watersnake Date\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Seeing the two of them close together seemed a little suspicious, especially when neither of them reacted to my close presence, though they confirmed their intent quickly, while I remained fixed in place and didn&#8217;t even shift my feet once I realized what was going on. The first couple of photos suffered from a shutter speed too slow for any quality, and I didn&#8217;t bother firing off the on-camera flash because I didn&#8217;t want to disturb them.<\/p>\n<p>Just after these clips, a third water snake slid into the picture and attempted his own coup, finding the position already taken, while the female began slipping just a little further away. Apparently it was clear that the female was in season, and I&#8217;m impressed with how easily this was detected by the males. Satisfied that their primary goals had been met, I elected to use the flash for a couple of frames, apparently disturbing nothing.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/SnekTrio.jpg\" alt=\"trio of northern water snakes Nerodia sipedon sipedon immediately after mating\" width=\"750\" height=\"491\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-34364\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>What I find impressive is the color variation, indicating little &#8211; most snake species vary in hue more than a little bit among individuals, making identification by color far too tricky to attempt, though <em>pattern<\/em> is another matter. The female is medium brown in base color, the first (successful) male is quite dark with no brown at all, while the latecomer (<em>ahem<\/em>) is almost orange in hue &#8211; his head lies along the female&#8217;s back just at the leftmost curl in this photo, with the other male just below it<strong>;<\/strong> the female&#8217;s head is at upper center.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, The Girlfriend did not come along on this outing &#8211; she does not like snakes and the size of the female, at least, would <em>not<\/em> have been met with anything approaching the delight that I had. Worse though, my brother was driving down here for vacation exactly when this was taking place, specifically to see things just like this, but what could I do? At least there&#8217;s the video&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And yes, I rejected countless off-color comments and puns both here and in the voiceover. I can display a tiny bit of class, with effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,3809],"tags":[6193,7240,6194,1206,961],"class_list":["post-34363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","category-video","tag-courtship","tag-knockin-boot","tag-mating-behavior","tag-nerodia-sipedon-sipedon","tag-northern-water-snake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}