WingedSweetheart
New member
It's been really cold this spring so far. Not a lot has been out besides frogs and salamanders.
Yesterday my boyfriend came over and we were looking around in the pond to see how the frog and salamander eggs were doing. A lot of them have started hatching.
Anyway we saw something poke it's head out of the water. We thought it was another Northern water snake. We had found several of them last year. So, boyfriend gets a stick and gently prods him to make him move towards the bank and then he catches him. We were surprised and excited to see it was actually a garter snake. One might think we are crazy for getting so excited over a common snake like that. But the thing is, there used to be all kinds of garter snakes, ribbon snakes, queen snakes, water snakes, and green snakes around here. But for the past 10 years or so we have rarely seen any. Then last year we started seeing the water snakes and then this year we find a garter. It makes us hopeful that the snakes are coming back.
My pond is also where the yellow spotted salamanders love to come and breed. Before the snow is gone and the pond is still half frozen, dozens of spotteds make their way to the pond. I guess they are finished hanging out at the pond now. I happened to find a couple of them under rocks near the pond last night. This is the biggest one I found and I decided to bring her inside for a measurement and a couple pictures.
Driving along on our way to get something to eat, we also saw some fence lizards running around on the rocks beside the road. Too bad there isn't any room to pull over or we would have taken pictures of them too!
Yesterday my boyfriend came over and we were looking around in the pond to see how the frog and salamander eggs were doing. A lot of them have started hatching.
Anyway we saw something poke it's head out of the water. We thought it was another Northern water snake. We had found several of them last year. So, boyfriend gets a stick and gently prods him to make him move towards the bank and then he catches him. We were surprised and excited to see it was actually a garter snake. One might think we are crazy for getting so excited over a common snake like that. But the thing is, there used to be all kinds of garter snakes, ribbon snakes, queen snakes, water snakes, and green snakes around here. But for the past 10 years or so we have rarely seen any. Then last year we started seeing the water snakes and then this year we find a garter. It makes us hopeful that the snakes are coming back.
My pond is also where the yellow spotted salamanders love to come and breed. Before the snow is gone and the pond is still half frozen, dozens of spotteds make their way to the pond. I guess they are finished hanging out at the pond now. I happened to find a couple of them under rocks near the pond last night. This is the biggest one I found and I decided to bring her inside for a measurement and a couple pictures.
Driving along on our way to get something to eat, we also saw some fence lizards running around on the rocks beside the road. Too bad there isn't any room to pull over or we would have taken pictures of them too!
