TWO SPECIES

Garter Snake, Green Island Road, Iowa

Usually when I make a visit to the wetlands along the Mississippi River I have something to report about birds. Sometimes great news and sometimes not so good news. Last weekend I found not much to get excited about our feathered friends but two encounters of different critters made me wondering if we have larger numbers of snakes again after other people seem to see more this year as well.

Brown Snake

Both were stretched out on the gravel road in the Green Island area and seemed to enjoy a bath in the sun. I usually get out of the car, make a few clicks with the camera, and force the snakes to go off the road, mostly with the leg of my monopod. It took me awhile this time, both snakes didn’t like to give up their sunny spots. Unfortunately too many of these critters get killed by people just driving over the animal, quite often intentionally. Thinking about that just makes me mad…

Garter Snakes are non-venomous and play a vital role to keep the ecosystem they live in healthy. Snake fungal disease is attributed to the decline of snakes in recent years but habitat loss may play a big role as well. Garter Snakes are recognized with 37 species and 52 subspecies but they are usually easy to identify.

Brown Snakes are also harmless and very docile. Their diet includes mostly earthworms, insect larvae and slugs.

Nikon Z6 II, Nikon NIKKOR Z 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S,    @400mm

NATURE CLICKS #522 - BROWN SNAKE (STORERIA DEKAYI)

Brown Snake, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Heritage Trail

It was getting dark when we returned to the car from a little walk with our dog Cooper this evening. We had chosen a quiet section of the Heritage Trail for our hike, a little bit up in the valley, to keep the dog away from any firecracker noise that is part of the celebrations for Independence Day. Most dogs do not like this kind of noise…

Joan discovered this small Brown Snake on the trail. They are a nonvenomous species and prefer woodlands like we have them here in eastern Iowa. Years ago we had no problems finding this and other species in our woods but during the last few years we hardly see any. I wanted to document this not so common find and cranked up the ISO to 2500 and still shot only with a shutter speed of 1/30s. This is when vibration reduction in camera or lens becomes a useful feature. It helped that the snake went into a defensive pose while we took a few pictures. We kept the stress to a minimum and guided the critter off the trail with a stick. Luckily nobody came at the time of dusk anymore, but a bicycle accidentally driving over it wasn’t a good perspective for this beautiful Brown Snake…

NATURE CLICKS #435 - BROWN SNAKE

It has been 10 years and one month ago since a Brown Snake was in front of my lens. I have lamented numerous times about the fact that we hardly see any snakes anymore around here, probably due to snake fungal disease (SFD). This photo is a few days old, because I was out of town for business, but my excitement hasn’t really settled yet. This is not a photo for winning an award, but for me it is a very important documentary shot.

While filling a hummingbird feeder in the front yard I discovered this snake between our Brown-eyed Susan sunflowers. Brown Snakes are primarily woodland snakes and eat earthworms, insect larvae, and slugs. They are docile and harmless.

The problem with making this photo was finding a “window” between all the flowers where nothing obstructed at least the head of the snake. This looks easy but a little wind made things moving around the snake and I have several shots where this was just not the case.