Mike and I went out to find a Mole King snake today or any other animals for that matter that may cross our path. Enroute to our destination we spotted an adult eastern box turtle next to the trail. Found about 5 turtles total today. We also found four species of snakes. One eastern worm and one eastern rat snake and one northern brown snake. The best find today was an adult Mole King Snake shwon in video with Mike
Not an uncommon snake by any means but certainly the largest one I have ever caught in the 8 acre park. This one was seen swimming just below and down stream of the park’s bridge. I carefull entered the water in front of the snake to avoid spooking her. When the snake had seen me it wasnt to much in a hurry to swim away but did so in a slow manner until it found a submerged rock to seek shelter under. I was able to gently grab it by the tail and at first the snake barely made a struggle. But as soon as I started to lift from the stream it began to turn around and bite. I carefuly lobbed her up onto the bank with my bare hands so that I could get a better look at her. I know from pevious encounteres that water snakes are not that coordinated to move on land as well as they are at swimming in te water. Once on land I started to approach the animal slowly and carefully. At this point she began to inflate her body the to strike repeatedly.
Northern water snakes are often mistaken to be cotton mouths or water moccaisons because of their demeaner and the fact that they swim in water. The opposite is rue. They are nonvenomous but wull bite repeatedly if you attempt to handle one. They are well adept at coralling and catching fish. Their recurved teeth allow them to hold onto their fish prey and I have on several occaisons seen them holding some very large fish with those teeth!!
Went out today to try and find a Mole King Snake in a meadow/woodland habitat area a few miles from home. I had learned from fellow naturalist that his particular site was certain to produce the kings and that now was a good time of the year to find them.
the cool thing about this porperty is that is has a variety of habitats with transitional edges that make perfect conditions not only for certain reptile species but for mammals and birds too. Today I was only interested and trying to focus on the Mole Kings but one cant help noticing all the other natural and wonderful distractions of flora and fauna that exist in this region.
Well I never found the Mole King snake but will definitely return for more trips to try and find one and other species. I did find under some old tires a black racer which at first was difficult to determine if that is what it was when I saw it laying there as if “asleep”. Turned out the snake was in its “blue phase” in otherwords getting ready to shed. Snakes shed theier skin whole (if healthy). Its their way to rid themselves of any parasites and to accommodate their new growth.
After wrangling the racer and letting it go I decided to try another locationto look for another species of black and the largest snake we have in our area the eastern black rat snake.
Explored part of the Bull Run river Watershed today to see what I could find in the form of flora and fauna.
Saw some really nice wild flowers-
spiderwort, Swamp mallow, bluets, spring beuaties, purple hyacinth,
blue bells to name a few.
There were some neat fungi in fact a very large “polypore” looking thing that was the size of the old tree stump it was consuming.
Some real cool arthropods too. Black widow spider
and two types of milipedes
In the phib category I was able to find some red backs in both lead and red morphs. One red almost looked tan where the red should have been. There were plenty of two lines as expected, along and in the streams. Pickerel and green frogs lined the banks or were under dinner plate sized or larger rocks. One tree with its exposed root system from stream erosion, housed a pair of northern water snakes. Down stream I caught a quick glimpse of a pair of black ducks just before they took flight at the site of me. Wood peckers of different types- red bellied and pileated with and the titmouse and wren permeated the air with their drumming and songs. My favorite event of the day was capturing a queen snake foraging for food along the bottom of the stream.
Tony Bulmer one of the lead Naturalist at Walney E.C. Lawrence Park briefs the public about the program prior to going out.
Another great turn out. Tony led this group while Mike and I assisted. We hit an area hoping to encounter wood frogs but no such luck. The wood frog’s breeding period had come and gone but we were able to observe other species.
Our first encounter were some rather large Spotted Salamanders and some pickerel frogs.
There were also an abundance of bull frog tadpoles. Mike and I filmed some Amaerican toads calling and amplexing in another area of the park this night.
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One frog actually tried to amplex with my monopod!! Its amazing how the desire to reproduce supercedes all other instincts such as to fleeing from potential danger.
No wood frogs but a good bit of phib diversity to make this a worthy trip.
