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.

NATURE CLICKS #431 - NORTHERN WATER SNAKE

Here is another image from last weekend. I know, snakes are not everybody’s favorite animal but I was very happy to see this Northern Water Snake crossing our way in the Green Island Wetlands. They are nonvenomous and eat fish, frogs, and salamanders. This was not the biggest one I have ever seen and its color was relativ light and so I assume this was a young adult. Unfortunately the snake population here in eastern Iowa has declined, maybe due to snake fungal disease (SFD). I have written about it here in the blog before.

The water snake was moving very fast and only stopped because we stepped in front of it. With hindsight I think I should have gotten still a little lower on the ground for this photo but overall I’m glad we saw this snake, which seems to become a rare occasion…

HEALTHY SNAKE?

Garter Snake -------

I have been possibly pointed in the right direction about my suspicion over the dramatic decline of snakes in our area by Pamela, who is also a member of the Dubuque Camera Club, today. Thank you Pamela! The cause could be snake fungal disease (SFD) and if you are interested to learn more about it, here is a useful link for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5095536/ . Oddly enough, Joan found a Garter Snake at the edge of our woods  yesterday, the first we saw in a long time. The snake just rested in the grass and gave me plenty of time to get the camera.

So how do we get a good image of a snake lying in the grass? I don’t know! I tried a low angle but din’t like the outcome. There was always a blade of grass that covered part of the head. I finally went for a picture from above, using the coil of the reptile and the soft evening light as my means for the story telling.

In a close-up view of the photo I can see that the skin of the snake is kinda flaky, however, not really visible in this size-reduced image of my blog. I will send a larger file to the people that do research on this disease and will either learn that this Garter Snake is healthy or help to pinpoint the spread of this fungus. This is all very concerning, knowing about what impact the Chytrid Fungus, in particular Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or “Bd”, has done to amphibians, wiping out more than one third of the world’s frog species. Just reading a lot about it today, the threat to these reptiles seems to be not less…

Nikon D750, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4G ED VR