Tuesday, 23 June, 2009
Look What I Found!
For a change, it didn't rain today. Overcast, but not actively precipitating. Into the garden I went to do some planting. I know, should be weeding but these pots of plants do need to get into the ground and spread their roots. So I'm chopping out weeds, pick-axing the site, pick-axing again to incorporate compost and coffee grounds. Planted 9 pots of a lovely sedge, Carex plantaginea, with its ribbon-like chartreuse leaves; some dark green Christmas fern, Polystichum achrostichoides as a lacy contrast; and an anonymous (lost the label) modest-sized hosta with soft green leaves edged in yellow. Looks good now, should look even better once the plants settle in. Even though the soil was damp I still decided to water. Not raining on my head while planting? Water.
And then I wanted to finish up by mulching. There's a subsiding pile of wood chips at the bottom of the driveway, two truck-loads dumped by the crews cleaning power-line right-of-way a couple of years ago. They're aging nicely, nice and dark and damp, complete with earthworms. I was using a 3-claw hand tool to drag the woodchips into some five-gallon buckets that I'd carry over to the work area.
Then I found this:
copyright © Paul Glattstein 2009
I'm not in the least phobic about snakes, as was my mother. There was a time when we spent our summers at Aunt Gert's bungalow in Brookfield, Connecticut. I would go actively looking for snakes. When my mother saw a snake in the road she'd close her eyes and run to get past it. I had a college course on herpetology: snakes and turtles, frogs and toads and salamanders and such. The snakes I find here in New Jersey at BelleWood Gardens are mostly garter snakes. They're rather placid animals. Catch one, let it slither around your hand for a moment or two, and they quiet down. Not so the snake I found today.
Dropping bucket and tool I made a quick grab for the actively departing snake. No time to take off my gloves as I walked up the driveway with the snake constantly slithering from hand to hand. Mind you, there was no attempt to bite. The snake's entire focus was on getting away.
Once at the house I hollered for Paul and told him pictures were required.
copyright © Paul Glattstein 2009
What a beautiful snake! It had just shed, and the colors were bright.
So recently shed, in fact, that these was that iridescence only found
at that time, a flicker of blue that comes and goes with the light. Not
an actual color but diffraction of light. The ridges that produce the effect
will be smoothed down as the snake's scales rub against its environment.
It's an Eastern milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum. A youngish one, I think, since adults can reach three feet in length. The brown or reddish-brown blotches outlined in black running down the length of its body are a good identifier. Belly scales are black and white in a checkered pattern. They're good guys. Adults eat mice, explaining why they may be found in barns and out-buildings.
copyright © Paul Glattstein 2009
Photo session over, I walked down the driveway, snake in hand
and put him back where I had found him. One attempt, another,
and he found enough of a gap to smoothly flow away into the dark
and moist wood chips. I picked up the bucket and went back to work.