the herp activity is progressing now that the weather has FINALLY warmed up
a bit. I am happy to say there was no skunkage! With the recent warm weather,
there has been some melting and the "creek" that runs through Rancho had
some water. The toads were out, waiting for the cover of darkness to get busy.
All I had with me was the crappy A620 so focusing really didn't happen so well in the bright mid-day sunlight.
Despite this, the below shot is somewhat interesting still.
I walked along the water's edge around to the nature trail. Only a few more Western Fence Lizards were
spotted.
I love the quintessential stinkeye look lizards always give you.
I walked down the trail, looking under a few more logs. As I approached the woods, I thought to myself, "oh
well, no serpents yet". At that very moment I heard a slight rustle off to my right. I look over and see this:
w00t! A nice, big, healthy looking GB Gopher!!! The snake was in a good spot for me to get ahold of him, so
I slowly crept around to the other side of the brush. As I got closer, the gopher snake rattled his tail against the
leaf litter in an attempt to mimic a rattlesnake and scare me away. To bad for him I didn't fall for his trickery.
So I got around to the front of the snake, got a good look at his head (just to be sure) and then grabbed him up
gently. He only struck at me 2 or 3 times, and was really a pretty snake. I tried to get him to calm down a little
so I could get a few decent shots, but the snake wasn't having it. So, all I got were the following two "action"
pics.
Here he is about to lunge at me mouth agape and hissing.
A nice full body shot showing how pretty even these very common Reno snakes are.
In a final attempt to get the snake to mellow out and pose, I placed him on a huge fallen log in the middle of
the trail. There was a small hole in the bark, and to my surprise, this full grown snake went right into it and
completely disappeared. And that was that. After that, I only saw one more lizard.
It was a good way to kill an hour. I want to come back at night and see if I can catch some toads doin' it.
Flowers blooming.
Habitat.
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