Green Anole in North Port Florida

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Memories: “This green anole is trying its best today to maintain appropriate social distance.” ~ Sunday, March 22nd, 2020 in North Port, Florida.

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Lizards on the Lower Monument Canyon Trail - June 14th, 2014

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Find the collared lizard.

Here he is.

The collared lizards in the Colorado National Monument
have such amazing coloring. It is always a treat to see them.

A second lizard.

And a third.

Very well camouflaged.

Later in the morning. Siesta time.

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Grand Junction Bull Snake

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This bull snake was discovered in Grand Junction, Colorado,

in the parking lot of a busy shopping area on May 20th, 2014.

It was caught to be released in a safer location.

Approximately 3 ft. long, it was a nice looking specimen.
It was also relatively calm and easy to handle.

Video of the release of the snake, near the Colorado River.



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Mica Mine Trail

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The Mica Mine trail is a very short hike.

There are many interesting rock formations along the way.

Deer Fly

Mica Mine Trail

Robber Fly

Can you find the lizard in this pic?

How about now?

Tachinid Fly?

Cloud Iridescence

Scott Wilson's much better picture of cloud iridescence.
Same day. Same location. Better camera.

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Nagini the Garter Snake Fishing for Dinner

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Collared Lizard on Serpent's Trail

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We spotted this yellow headed collared lizard today along Serpent's Trail on the Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, Colorado this afternoon.

Yellow headed collared lizard looking out towards the Bookcliffs.

Short video of the view above.

Yellow headed collared lizard with
Colorado National Monument in the background.

Yellow headed collared lizard on Serpent's Trail.

Yellow headed collared lizard. Fabulous colors!

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Nagini is getting bigger.

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Over the last few weeks, Naggie has eaten about 5 pinkie mice altogether. She continues to grow noticeably every day.

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Nagini's First Shed

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Nagini the garter snake shed her skin for the first time today. 

In my opinion, snake skins are pretty cool.

Looks like Naggie's ghost.

She still has a lot of growing to do.

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Cloudy Snake Eyes

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Nagini (a.k.a. Naggie) the garter snake has eyes that are clouded over this morning. 

Often referred to as milky or bluish eyes, they are a tell-tale sign that she will be shedding her skin soon. 

Snake eyes are covered with a specially adapted scale (called an eye cap), which loosens up in order to be shed along with the rest of the skin. This loosening is what causes the altered appearance of the eyes. 

There is quite a bit of advice available online for how to care for a snake when it is entering into this relatively vulnerable phase.

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"Nagini" the Garter Snake Tries Some New Food

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"Nagini" is a very young garter snake that we've had for four days now. We think that she is most likely a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans).

The day after we caught Nagini, we successfully fed her some small, live feeder fish from a bowl full of water.  That was on Wednesday. Today (Friday) I tried feeding her some bits of a pinkie mouse. Using feeder tongs and just a little bit of movement, it didn't take long at all to get her to strike at this new food.

Based on the information that I have been able to find on the internet, pinkie mice are better than other food sources because they're free of parasites, mites and worms. Also, they provide complete nutrition to the garter snake, whereas other fish, amphibians, and worms are all deficient in some important way. For those reasons, I was glad that we could get our young snake to eat these pinkie bits very easily.

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Garter Snake in Grand Junction, CO

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A few days ago, I found a small garter snake when I was getting ready to do some weed eating in the yard. I'm still not sure exactly what species it is, but I think that it may be a very young Terrestrial Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans).

There is quite a bit of information about caring for young snakes, (i.e. what to feed them, how to feed them, how often, etc.) available on the internet. I'm going to post some pictures of this little creature and some of the better links that I've found to be the most helpful. I'll continue to add links to this post as I find them. 

www.Gartersnake.info has been one of the most helpful sites overall, and is a good starting point. 

So far, the snake that we found has eaten live feeder fish from a bowl of water. This is not the best food, as you'll find in the referenced websites, so we're going to try to get it to eat pinkie parts as soon as possible.

There are more links posted below the pictures. Check back in the future to see if new links have been added.

Here is a link to several good YouTube videos that show different ways to get very young garter snakes to eat ~ http://bit.ly/LmcXPn

The SnakeBytes TV channel on YouTube has several good generalized snake videos, and at least one which specifically deals with garter snakes ~ http://bit.ly/N3qTPz

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UPDATE #1

4 days after we caught this snake, we were able to get it to eat cut up bits of a pinkie mouse. We cut up the pinkie while it was still frozen, then thawed it out in a Ziploc bag placed into a bowl of lukewarm water.  There is a video of this first feeding available here ~ http://bit.ly/Q3FYCD

Audubon Trail and Connected Lakes

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The highlight of today's walk was definitely the owlets.
Their original nest was blown out of the tree
and replaced with this basket.

We also saw a mourning cloak butterfly on the 

hill that leads down from Redlands Pkwy.

Fish were visible in the murky water of the connected lakes.

Some kind of interesting hanging nest up in the trees.

We saw many red-wing blackbirds and a family canoeing.

We saw a lot of robins. This one was the most photogenic.

 

Guess what's hiding under this clump of branches?

It's a rabbit.

One more look at the owlets and mama great horned owl. 

We saw this snake at the beginning and at the end of our walk.

It lives under this rock.

It was a beautiful day for a walk on the trail.

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