Catch of the day!

If you live in the country you should expect to see herps on the roadway occasionally, especially during the spring.   We always carry a cardboard box, for turtles, and a snake bag and/or small plastic cage, for snakes.  The following pictures are of this morning's catches. 

If you're curious, that's 4 three-toed box turtles and a snake.  More on the snake later.  The box turtles were crossing the roads.  We could have put them on the other side, in the direction they were going (some recommend this) or we could take them home to our 20 acres (with over 200 vacant adjoining acres open/wooded) and keep them further away from an asphalt road.  We choose to take them home.  We figure if we just left them,  they'd try to cross the road again, and it may be their last time.  The patterns are interesting as the turtles are obviously all sizes and ages, but all the same species.

Then there was the snake.  This was not a road find, but yet another that showed up at the house of the friend I mentioned in an earlier post.  This time there was only the one, a rather gravid-looking female.  With an attitude.  Can you see the way she flattened her head while staring us down?  This was taken after we let her go at our house, in the same vicinity as the others we caught last week.

Yesterday, we found  a red-ear slider, and an ornate box turtle at the intersection where a two-lane highway crosses over a four-lane highway.    Both displaced by the rain, and construction that had occurred.  Of course we relocated these two because they were surely doomed otherwise.  I also forgot to mention the box turtle found attempting to cross 6 lanes of traffic in town.  We rescued it too. 

Can't get them all, but we try to help those we can.  We hope you'll all do the same!

Save the snakes (breeding ball!)

Got a call this morning from a frantic, former co-worker, that there were snakes basking in the bushes outside her bedroom window, and she wanted them GONE!!!  When I asked her to describe them, I was sure they were going to be garter snakes.  Of course that's exactly what she described, since she lives within the city limits, and that's about the only type that still co-exist with humanity in an urban setting.

When I got there, the bush looked to be vacated, but indeed while we waited, a couple little heads showed themselves above the foliage.  Grabbing them proved to be a bit more difficult.  After I figured out their potential plan of action (like where they were disappearing to) I got the hang of it, and caught 6 all together.  She thought there were 5, so I'm one ahead of her.  I told her I'd come back tomorrow morning, to see if there were any more.

I believe it may have been a potential "breeding ball", as they're known, when some snakes gather in a large group (usually a pack of males to one female) to try to impregnant her.  This has been documented in garter snakes, and anacondas.  A breeding ball of anacondas would definitely be something to behold!   Indeed one of the garter snakes was visibly larger than the others.

This is the bush that housed the snakes; the evergreen, NOT the larger broadleaf to the left.

Can you find the snake?  Great camouflage!

Two small handfuls of the squirmin vermin!

Cameo shot of the big six.

Dumped them all out at home.   The majority split before I could get a good shot!  They'll be safer on 20 acres, rather than a bush in front of an apartment building.  And with luck they'll make more baby garter snakes!  All in a day's work!

New and different finds, plus an old friend...

Don't know if it's the weather (rain, rain, more rain) or just plain dumb luck, but we've found a few herps on the road, and at home, at times we least expected them, and unusual finds...for us, that is.

The first is our very own Rough Green Snake.  Saw him crossing the road, as we were going to town one morning about 9:00.  Believe me, they are hard to spot on the road!   We know they are around, but we haven't personally seen one in the wild for probably at least 20 years!

The next little guy/gal (size is deceiving in these pictures), was a Red Bellied Snake, caught just outside the back door of our house.  Looked to be a gravid female, but we're not keeping her around just to see.  She was photographed in the same spot as the Rough Green Snake, and if you look, you can see some of the same detritis, which you can use for comparison purposes.  Suffice it to say "she" was as heavy or heavier than the RGS, but about 1/4 as long!

And last is a prairie kingsnake we picked up along the road, of course, during the hot part of the day, and we donated her to the local Nature Center, as they were looking for one.  Unfortunately they did not think she would make a good specimen, as she "rattled her tail" and looked as though she was going to bite them.  So she gave up a life of leisure and easy food, and we brought her back home.  We think she may be gravid, so we're going to keep her a bit longer and see if she lays eggs.  If so, we're going to hatch them out, and donate one of the offspring to the Nature Center.  They want a young one they can raise up to be tame and gentle!!?

With all the rain we've been having, we also expect to find a few more misguided water turtles...stay tuned!

Nice finds...

Went road cruising the other night and picked up these two little guys.  We just take pictures, and let them go, but it's always fun!

Copperhead

Pigmy Rattlesnake



The best intentions...

...can often lead to poor results.  Witness the snapping turtle's shell in the picture below.  This poor animal was "caught" as a baby, and was not housed properly.  It must have been fed enough, as it didn't get this big by eating nothing, but it was not fed corretly, meaning it did not get the benefits of UV to assimilate calcium  and so it's shell is compromised.  This animal cannot be released back into the wild as it cannot swim correctly.    A sad outcome for this guy, by someone who meant well, but just didn't know better.

Dogloos and sulcatas

FINALLY got the tortoises outside and OVERNIGHT, for the first time this spring.  Hopefully we won't have to bring them in again until this fall.   We did have them outside a few times this year already, but the night time temps were too cold, so we'd haul them back and forth.  And a basketball-sized tortoise is hard to maneuver! 

For the sulcatas we use dog igloos for housing;  they really seem to enjoy them.  They go in them during hot times of the day, and at night when they put themselves to bed.  This is our largest, sitting outside his/her igloo.  It's one of the largest size you can buy.  We took out the floor and just laid the igloo on the ground.  The tortoise has dug a hole in the ground inside, but has made no attempt in at least four years to dig out of the pen. 

At the end of the summer, there will be a track around the perimeter and the grass mowed short within the pen, but for now, it's in "tall cotton" (or clover and grass.)

Looked outside the front window and...

...saw this dark shape in the driveway.  Of course I gotta go take a look, with camera in hand.

Of course the dog went outside with me, to check out the "intruder!

It was a red-ear slider, a male no less (usually when we find them on the road, they're females looking for a place to lay eggs.)  We've had a lot of rain recently, as anyone who lives in the midwest knows.  He must have gotten washed up and a bit disoriented. 

This guy is also at least a mile from the nearest water!  I'm sure of the distance because we live exactly 1 mile from the Finley River.    Here's another picture for size comparison:

We'll be letting him go back in the river later this afternoon. 

Food for thought...

Ever think about how alot of us raise our own food for our animals, and it's usually all organic, but we buy food for ourselves, and it's usually not organic!  Does that mean our animals eat better than we do?  They probably live better than we do, if you think that they don't have to hunt for food; they don't have to do any house-cleaning; their "house" is usually temperature-controlled to their liking.   

So here's a pic of some well-fed feeders!  Meal worms really like bananas!

First turtle this spring!

First turtle crossing the road, that is!  At least the first turtle we've seen this spring.  It's been very rainy, which usually brings out the critters, but it's been cold also and this probably saves many of their lives.  If it were warm and rainy, the highway slaughter would be awful.  We had to wait for a few cars to pass by before we could get this guy off  the road.  May he add many more rings to his shell before he goes to the Great Strawberry Patch in the sky!