An outing for odolympics. Odes seen.
Jun. 20th, 2021 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo yesterday I went out and about for day 1 of Odolympics (kind of like birders do a Big Day, but it's a week long and for odes) even though the weather was somewhat less than stellar. And odes were seen.
While I'm doing odes, sometimes I see some non-odes wildlife at the same time. I'm outside and I'm hanging out with not a lot to do besides look at stuff or trek from location A to location B for more looking at stuff (still outside). And while I'm outside, I see things. That's what happened yesterday.
As regular readers may or may not be aware, I live out back of beyond on a fairly large hunk of forested Pennsylvania Ridge-n-Valley, said hunk consisting primarily of a south-facing somewhat rocky mountainside. As well, almost everything we own is over 1330 feet in elevation. The upshot of all of this is that my home is pretty solid habitat for, well, for these:
That's my picture, from my outing yesterday. (Update 7-3-2021: This snake is now dead having been blown away by shotgun blasts from one of the summer people who has a "summer home" here so that they can be in nature except not the part of it that hisses and rattles even though they are a state protected species that is NOT AGGRESSIVE and doesn't want to "get" people. I do not like the summer people but clearly we have some work to do about "obey all pertinent laws regarding the wildlife" because they should not be killing the sneks.) Here's another (different noodle), also from my outing yesterday:
So I posted these noodles on facebook. People were kind of OMG and Where Were They and "I would have been terrified" and stuff. In fairness, it's a bit disconcerting when I see them. There's definitely a startle factor going on for me. But, seeing timber rattlers in The Wild is a thing that happens where I live. Not all the time, certainly not every year, but a lot more than never.
The timber rattler is an even-tempered and fairly shy snake that would prefer to de-escalate and disengage. It does not want to waste biologically expensive venom on your dumb ass because you are not FOOD. (Its prey is mostly small mammals, like deer mice. It cannot eat anything it can't swallow whole.)
If you come upon a rattler, it will probably attempt to alert you to its presence by coiling up and rattling at you. If that happens, back up like ten feet, snap some pix using your camera's zoom function to good effect, and depart the area calmly. The snek will not pursue you. That is not how they work.
I'm not making this up. Here's a good article on timber rattlers and, well, living with them. They are not out to get you. They will leave if you let them.
I also saw a very attractive box turtle:
While I'm doing odes, sometimes I see some non-odes wildlife at the same time. I'm outside and I'm hanging out with not a lot to do besides look at stuff or trek from location A to location B for more looking at stuff (still outside). And while I'm outside, I see things. That's what happened yesterday.
As regular readers may or may not be aware, I live out back of beyond on a fairly large hunk of forested Pennsylvania Ridge-n-Valley, said hunk consisting primarily of a south-facing somewhat rocky mountainside. As well, almost everything we own is over 1330 feet in elevation. The upshot of all of this is that my home is pretty solid habitat for, well, for these:
That's my picture, from my outing yesterday. (Update 7-3-2021: This snake is now dead having been blown away by shotgun blasts from one of the summer people who has a "summer home" here so that they can be in nature except not the part of it that hisses and rattles even though they are a state protected species that is NOT AGGRESSIVE and doesn't want to "get" people. I do not like the summer people but clearly we have some work to do about "obey all pertinent laws regarding the wildlife" because they should not be killing the sneks.) Here's another (different noodle), also from my outing yesterday:
So I posted these noodles on facebook. People were kind of OMG and Where Were They and "I would have been terrified" and stuff. In fairness, it's a bit disconcerting when I see them. There's definitely a startle factor going on for me. But, seeing timber rattlers in The Wild is a thing that happens where I live. Not all the time, certainly not every year, but a lot more than never.
The timber rattler is an even-tempered and fairly shy snake that would prefer to de-escalate and disengage. It does not want to waste biologically expensive venom on your dumb ass because you are not FOOD. (Its prey is mostly small mammals, like deer mice. It cannot eat anything it can't swallow whole.)
If you come upon a rattler, it will probably attempt to alert you to its presence by coiling up and rattling at you. If that happens, back up like ten feet, snap some pix using your camera's zoom function to good effect, and depart the area calmly. The snek will not pursue you. That is not how they work.
I'm not making this up. Here's a good article on timber rattlers and, well, living with them. They are not out to get you. They will leave if you let them.
I also saw a very attractive box turtle:
