Herpetology

As the week is coming to an end, I decided to get the jump on my pool chores Friday morning before setting off on a hike, and also because there was a forecast for tropical storm rain and wind. This hike, the third and final of my vacation, was going to be White Oak Canyon, which is over on the east side of SNP. As I went about the routine of setting up the robot and cleaning out the return baskets, I found this little toad swimming around against the suction that would have eventually brought him down.

He was gray from the cool water and from being submerged in it for so long, and seemed a bit swollen and waterlogged, so I didn’t know if he’d make it. So I set him on the terrace near the path to keep an eye on him while the work continued. Sure enough, after a few minutes, he’d warmed up and taken on a brownish color and hopped away. I took this photo just as he was preparing to go back into the yard – I hope he makes it.

After I got back on fairly level ground in the canyon yesterday, I nearly stepped on this snake basking on a rock (see the gravel? I stepped THERE). The photo doesn’t really show the colors of this one, but there was a distinct pattern…so I’m thinking back to Howard’s advice, “Once you have seen the copperhead’s pattern, you never forget it.”

But this snake wasn’t aggressive as I would have expected from a copperhead, the markings didn’t form the distinctive hourglass that I have been told to look for – and the colors here were pale red and yellow. In reading my Peterson guide, the one I’ve come up with is Northern Water Snake, which ranges from Maine to Colorado and south to the Gulf of Mexico. There is also a Southern Water Snake, but it’s range is described as extending only to the Carolinas and west to Texas, plus the colorations are a more distinct pattern.

While the northern water snake is harmless and is described as timid, the field guide says that “it can be found in virtually every unpolluted swamp, marsh, bog, stream, pond, or lake in its range.” That's for all my snake-fearing friends, you've probably been as close to one of these as I have at some point!