sticking to the snake theme for today

[Dylan8i]

Here's a pic i forgot about until i was looking at the other snake pictures today. i took this while in zion NP. i was hikign near kolob arch and stubmled across this guy, whom i scared and so i sat down real quick with my camera out, and waited about an hour until he slowly came back and started to fish for tadpoles again.

its a blacknecked garter snake.

[paulnj]

That's a western species right, because I don't recall seeing garters like that on the east coast.

[Dylan8i]

yeah, it was taken in Zion NP in utah. I'm not actually positive it is a black necked, but i know thier is a black necked garter, and i would assume this was it, with a black ring around its neck.

[Dylan8i]

actually looking at a few different sites i think it might actually be the checkered garter snake.

http://www.pitt.edu/~mcs2/herp/snake.pics/checkered.jpg


heres a close up of its head, cropped from a different picture.

[Sushigaijin]

hey,

i think it's actually a terrestrial garter, thamnophis elegans. It looks to me like the wandering garter, thamnophis elegans vagrans, but i am too lazy right now to look up the range of that particular subspecies. I would put money on either elegans elegans or elegans vagrans. another picture that really shows a snake doing what snakes do...what a concept!!!


Erik.

[Dylan8i]

hey,

i think it's actually a terrestrial garter, thamnophis elegans. It looks to me like the wandering garter, thamnophis elegans vagrans, but i am too lazy right now to look up the range of that particular subspecies. I would put money on either elegans elegans or elegans vagrans. another picture that really shows a snake doing what snakes do...what a concept!!!


Erik.

thanks Sushigaijin, that looks like it. it was def. a young snake, first year probbably, i didn't catch it so no anal plate number (not that that helps distinguish between garters), or shots of the side of its head( to see if it had the light crescent to determine checkered or not).

[paulnj]

I love snakes , but in NJ they are far too hard to find compared to my main subject.... BIRDS. I have a friend who found and photographed a hognose in NJ while scouting nesting birds last year, now that was a find!

[Copy_Kot]

I love snakes , but in NJ they are far too hard to find compared to my main subject.... BIRDS.

I'm sure you could find plenty of snakes if you looked in Trenton (I'm sorry, I had to do it ).

Another great picture Dylan :thumbsup:

[paulnj]

I think DC has the highest concentration though :lol:

[Mike T]

I love snakes , but in NJ they are far too hard to find compared to my main subject.... BIRDS. I have a friend who found and photographed a hognose in NJ while scouting nesting birds last year, now that was a find!

You got that right. As a kid my brother and I would go out and catch snakes and didn't seem to have much trouble finding them. Now I rarely see one while I'm out walking. Snakes were one of the things I went out looking for when I got my 300MM lens, what I saw most was birds so I started taking pictures of them. I only saw one hognose snake in my life and that was on a golf course not far from NJ over in PA, it even played dead for us. I always heard there were more of these in the southern part of the state.
Mike

[paulnj]

My friend found his in pequannock watershed. Being that I have done treework for 17 years(and just went back to it) , I have spent alot of time in the woods. I see alot more grey treefrogs than snakes ! The next time I see one, I am going to get an image if my camera is handy