reptiles – Page 4 – Seabrooke Leckie

Monday Miscellany

Is it just me, or has the spring, once it finally arrived, really been flying by? Here we are in May already. I think April must have disappeared when I blinked.

A varied assortment of miscellaneous photos this week. We did a bit of hiking about the last few days, which resulted in a number of them. This White-tailed Deer was actually observed as we were returning from one of our several outings. As we were coming down our dirt road, there were a group of five deer standing in the middle of the road. I’m not sure what they were doing – it’s too late in the season for them to be getting road salt, and I don’t think our road gets salted anyway. But there they were, nonetheless, and slow to clear out. Even once they did, they paused at the road edge to watch us drive by. This photo, cropped only slightly for composition, was taken with my wide-angle lens, through the car window.

The stream of returning migrants has started to get heavier. In the last week I’ve had nearly as many new arrivals as I’d had through all of the rest of April. One of the more recent species to show up has been the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. These gorgeous birds have been singing in our woods, and we even had a couple of them visiting our feeders, where they come for the sunflower seed. This particular individual was the first one I saw at the feeder. Naturally, as soon as I grabbed my camera he took off and sat in a nearby tree for a bit where he was a bit farther away. It was a dreary day, with a bit of drizzle, but he really added a splash of colour to the landscape.

While out hiking the last few days, we’ve noticed quite a number of these dark little skippers flouncing around a few feet above the forest floor. They hardly settled at all, barely long enough for a quick look, nevermind a photo. It was just by chance that while walking Raven today I this one skipped across in front of us. Raven sat-stayed (she’s been very good with that lately) while I sloooowly slouched over toward where the butterfly landed. I managed to get a couple of serviceable shots before it took off again. It’s got an interesting pattern, with the centre parts of the wings very dark, such that they look like they’re in shadow. These dark wings help to identify it as a duskywing, and the single small white spot in the centre of the forewing makes it a Juvenal’s Duskywing, a fairly common spring butterfly of oak woods.

Dan and I came across this scene in the park on one of our hikes last week. This Garter Snake was strung over the log, dead but otherwise untouched. The injuries to the snake are all near its head, and the way the head lies over the log while the rest dangles off the side suggests that this was the kill of a hawk. It could have been one of a number of hawk species that live in our area, but the most likely hunter was probably a Red-shouldered Hawk, which are reasonably common in the forests around here. They hunt in the forest, sitting on a branch in a tree to spot their prey, then swooping down from the perch to snatch it. Since the most dangerous part of the snake is its head, the first thing a hawk does is dispatch it quickly by severing its spine. The bird may have been disturbed by something (probably not us, as we didn’t notice any hawks in the area) before it was able to consume its meal.

My second tiger beetle of the spring, a different species than the first one. This one, I believe, is the common Six-spotted Tiger Beetle, Cicindela sexguttata. It’s the only species we have that is entirely bright green, with pale spots on the elytra. The only other species in Ontario that resembles it is Cicindela denikei, which is also all green, but with either no or almost no pale markings. Although my beetle resembled C. denikei more than the traditional C. sexguttata, I know it had to be the latter if for no other reason than location – C. denikei is virtually endemic to northwestern Ontario.

Another recent arrival is this Baltimore Oriole. Although they’ve been back in the area for about a week now, this is the first individual I’ve spotted. It was singing in our front yard, from high up in our mature maple tree. It was foraging among the buds, and pausing periodically to sing in cheerful outbursts of melody. I had the window open, and could hear it from where I sat at my desk, so I grabbed my camera and went out to watch and admire it a while.

I’ve noticed a few dragonflies around just over the last couple of days. Today I had a Green Darner zipping along the road, quickly out of sight before I could do much more than have the ID register in my brain. All of the rest of the dragonflies I’ve seen have belonged to this species. I’m reasonably certain this is an American Emerald, Cordulia shurtleffii. Most emeralds have bright green eyes, but the immature females have brown eyes. The diagnostic characteristic of this species seems to be the pale ring around the base of the abdomen. Although some dragonflies will have green markings, the emeralds are the only group where the green is iridescent. American Emeralds are often found along forest edges around bogs and fens, and sometimes vernal ponds in forest interiors. We actually found these in juniper rock barren clearings, without any water immediately nearby. This one was sitting in a juniper shrub, with its wing caught among the needles, so I was able to easily pick it up for a photograph.

There are some wild Canis sp. in the park, but whether they are Canis latrans, the Coyote, or Canis lupus, the Gray Wolf, seems to be a matter of some debate. Coyotes and wolves can interbreed freely, and both can mate with the domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris, technically a subspecies of the Gray Wolf (with the point of divergence having taken place some 15,000 years ago), so it’s possible that the wild canids that roam the park are even a cross-breed between any one of these groups. Regardless of their taxonomy (the animals themselves don’t really care, do they?), these packs are the primary predators in the park. Every now and then you’ll see evidence of their activities. Scat is most common, but while out recently, we came across the bleached remains of a deer kill. This is the skull and upper mandible of a White-tailed Deer. You can see the bony knobs behind the eyes which the antlers are affixed to.

And the last photo in this installment is of a cocoon. It just happened to be hanging from a low branch immediately over the path Dan and I were walking along. Curled up and secured with silk, the leaf was also attached to the branch by silken glue to prevent it from falling off in the blustery winter months. I don’t know who the architect is for this home, but they seemed to still be in residence. I briefly considered plucking it from the branch and bringing it home with me to see who emerged, but we still had a few kilometers left to hike, and I didn’t have a safe way to protect it from being jostled or crunched while we made our way back to the car, so I reluctantly left it.

Today at Kingsford – Warm weather catch-up

On the same lovely warm day a week ago that I spotted the various butterflies and day-flying moths, I also encountered a number of spring vertebrates. The first was this garter snake. It was just lying in the road, not moving, soaking up the same beautiful sunshine that I was. It seemed somewhat chubby, and I wondered if it might be a pregnant female. It seems rather unlikely, though, since snakes would only just be starting to mate now, and garter snakes gestate for 2-3 months before giving birth to live young (which are independent from birth). On the other hand, females can store viable sperm for multiple years, so would some perhaps make use of that to get a head start on gestation before emerging from the hibernaculum in the spring?

Out on Eel Lake I spotted a turtle basking on a log. The water was open, but the ice wasn’t long gone, so I was a bit surprised to see the turtle out and active (if you can call sunbathing active) already. I couldn’t tell what species of turtle it was, and even after coming home and blowing up the photos I still couldn’t discern enough detail to give it an ID (I only had my 100mm lens on the camera, having decided to leave the 300mm at home, and couldn’t get close enough with the shorter lens). However, I did notice when I blew the photo up that there wasn’t just one turtle in the photo, but actually four. Click here for a larger version of the next photo.

There are five species of turtle in Frontenac Provincial Park and area: Blanding’s, Map, Painted, and Snapping Turtles, as well as Stinkpots. Blanding’s have yellow bellies and throats, which seem bright enough to be noticeable even at a distance, so I don’t think they’re those. Snappers are much more craggy. The ones in the photo don’t seem to have a dorsal ridge that Map turtles can show. Stinkpots have a very stumpy appearance with domed shells and thick necks. So I think that leaves Painted. But if I’m honest, I really don’t know for certain.

And finally, not far from the log with the first turtle, I watched a fish splashing around in the shallows. I think there may actually have been two, but I couldn’t really tell for sure, since there was a fair bit of glare on the water from where I was standing. At one point one of them swam close enough that the fish’s shape could be seen in the shadowy patches, and I think it was a Northern Pike, a relatively common fish in our lakes. In the early spring pike will move into the weedy shallows around lake edges in order to spawn, and I have a feeling that’s what was going on in all the splashing in the shallows here. Wish I’d had my canoe and could’ve floated closer for a better look.

Today at Kingsford – Red-bellied Snake

A couple days ago as Dan and I were assessing the property boundaries while scouting out potential net locations for the owl monitoring project, I happened across a small brown snake that appeared to be sunning itself at the side of the road. Thinking it was a Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi) at first, I gingerly picked it up by the tail to move it off the road. The snake looked remarkably intact, and its eyes clear, but unfortunately, it turned out I was too late. It had been hit already, perhaps by a flying piece of gravel. It had a small patch of dried blood at the side of its head, crusted with tiny gravel bits, and it hung limp from my fingers.

As it hung from my hand, however, I was able to view its underside, which was a bright orange-red. Though it wasn’t visible while the snake was sitting on the ground, this clinched its ID as a Red-bellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata). Some sources call this the Redbelly Snake, and I’ve also seen “Northern” tagged on in front of both versions; unlike birds, where the American Ornithologists’ Union has set official names for all the species, most other groups of organisms don’t have formally chosen English names, so finding information using the scientific name is more reliable. At least the red belly isn’t disputed. Whatever its name, it’s the first I’ve ever seen of the species.

These little snakes, about the same size as the Brown Snake, and together the smallest Canadian snake species, are the same size as an adult as the baby rat snake was that I found earlier in the week, only 8 to 16 inches (20-40 cm). As a youngster they start out at just 3 inches (7.5 cm). The females do not lay eggs, but rather give birth to live young. They eat small invertebrates such as worms and slugs, and can often be found hunkered under logs or wooden boards, or other surface debris. Red-bellies tend to inhabit more natural woodlands and wet meadows, while Brown Snakes share similar habitat but aren’t opposed to living in suburban parks or vacant lots as well. They spend the winter snuggled away in abandoned rodent burrows or other natural crevices, including sometimes anthills.

Today at Kingsford

I took Raven out for a walk late this afternoon, up the road a couple of kilometers and back again. It was a good walk and good exercise for both of us. In my case I’m hoping to offset my obsessive snacking that I seem to suffer from when I sit at my desk working for long periods. In Raven’s case I’m hoping just to wear off some of that puppyish energy (or is it border collie energy?). We were out for about an hour, and for most of it I was walking at a pace brisk enough to keep her at a good trot, and yet she still has energy to spare when we return home. This dog could go forever, I swear, she never seems to tire.

On our way home I happened along this little snake lying on the dirt road. I almost didn’t notice it, and had nearly put my foot down next to it before I spotted it. It was little, about the size of a fully-grown Brown Snake, and boldly spotted. There are two possibilities for species, both being youngsters. One is Eastern Milksnake, but I’m fairly sure that it’s actually a young Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta), as young milksnakes are fairly bright in colour, usually reddish rather than brownish. Found through much of eastern North America, rat snakes are at the northern edge of their range here in Ontario, and because of declining populations are now endangered in the province. They’re mostly found in just two small areas of the province, one down in the southwest, and the other here in the Frontenac Axis. This is only the second rat snake I’ve seen; the first was in the weeds beside the house on the day we signed the lease for it – a good omen, I thought.

Edit: I’ve been corrected! This is actually a young Northern Water Snake, a possibility that didn’t even cross my mind at the time as it was some distance from the lake. This would make it also only the second water snake I’d seen, at least to that point. The info below is still for rat snakes, however.

Adult snakes can get quite large, up to 8 feet (2.4m) long in extreme cases. They have the ability to climb trees because of special scales on their belly that curve upward where they meet the sides, providing better grip on surfaces. They are constrictors, squeezing and suffocating prey, and target primarily rodents, though they’re not opposed to opportunistically taking birds, bird eggs, frogs or lizards. When startled or threatened, rat snakes will vibrate the tip of their tail in the dry leaf litter on the ground, creating a rattling sound similar to that of a rattlesnake.

Today at Kingsford

Well, actually Thursday at Kingsford. When I took Raven out for a second walk in the park the next day, we took a different route, one that hugged the lakeshore, as much as it’s possible to hug the shore with steep ridges and valleys. For the most part, the ridges ran parallel to the shore, so it was easy enough to walk along the top without too much up-and-down effort.

It was while walking along here that I came across this on the forest floor; a turtle shell, long vacant of its owner. It was upturned, belly-up, nestled in the detritus of the forest floor. A few of the scutes, the hard material that covers the bony shell, were still attached in places. The scutes are made of keratin, much like our fingernails are. In theory, it may have been possible to identify the owner’s species with the help of these scutes, but there weren’t enough of them, and what was there wasn’t distinct enough, to be able to discern any pattern.

The plastron, the “belly” part of the shell, was still loosely attached when I picked it up and started carrying it home, but as I was trying to maneuver myself and a dog into a boat, I inadvertently applied a bit too much pressure to it and it popped in, separating cleanly at the “seams”, the points where the individual bone plates had grown together. It was only after I got it home that I noticed the upper shell itself was cracked, and it was only today as I sat down to write this, amazingly, that I noticed a huge gaping hole in the side of the shell. I can’t tell if this hole was created posthumously or was itself the cause of the turtle’s death, but it kind of looks like holes created by a bird with a sharp beak. The front of the plastron is also broken off, perhaps also an indication of predation.

Interestingly, removing the plastron makes it much easier to examine the inside of the shell, and you can see the backbone, fused to the shell, running its length. The shell itself is really just modified ribs, broadened and fused together to form a continuous surface. The plastron is the equivalent of our sternum, again modified to provide bony armor for the turtle’s underside. As such, it’s impossible to remove a turtle from its shell, the way you could remove a hermit crab from its shell – it would be like trying to remove us from our ribcage.