Monthly Archives: November 2013

Snake trap

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A couple of days ago I took the dogs for their walk down Wildlife Trail, where the road has recently been resurfaced. I noticed that Zeke was paying particular attention to something at the side of the road. When I went over to look, I didn’t recognize it at first. I fairly quickly saw that it was a snake, but it looked strange. The head looked almost like a cobra with its hood spread, but the snake looked black with a grayish diamond pattern. Then I realized that it was a black snake that had been caught in an erosion control mat that was backed with a green plastic mesh. The pattern on its back was the mesh. It had tried to crawl through an opening in the mesh. It couldn’t get through, but it had pushed into the opening far enough that the thin mesh caught on the scales and it couldn’t back out. Its head was horribly swollen. I thought it was dead, but it moved a little.

I didn’t have my camera then, or my reading glasses, so I couldn’t see very well. I knelt down beside it and used the scissors on my little Swiss Army Knife to cut some of the mesh threads. But I just couldn’t see well enough to do much.

I had to take the dogs a little further, but I planned to come back after their walk with glasses so I could free the snake. On the way back up the hill, I looked for the snake but couldn’t find it. I assumed it had freed itself, although I couldn’t figure out how it could have done one that

So I went on about my business for the next couple of days. I took the dogs on our usual walks on Fouche Gap Road and didn’t go down Wildlife Trail. But today I had to get Zeke to the vet, so I took a shorter walk down Wildlife Trail. This is what I saw.

Black snake - the green mesh is barely visible

Black snake – the green mesh is barely visible

There it was, right where I left it. I don’t know how I missed it. This time I had my camera and my glasses. I debated taking the photograph (and it turned out blurred anyway), but I went ahead purely for documentary purposes. I thought this time it was surely dead, but then it moved again.

I knelt down and started cutting more of the strands. The swelling had gone down considerably, but it seemed that there were still strands that were caught under the snake’s scales or embedded in its flesh. Even with my glasses I still couldn’t see well enough to make sure I was getting everything, but I cut away as much as I could. Then I had to walk away.

Again, I planned to come back later with my magnifying headset to try to finish the job. When I finally got back to where it had been, it was gone.

Did I get enough of the mesh cut that it was able to crawl away and survive? Did I cut enough away that it was able to crawl away and die? Did some predator get it? I have no idea. It was hard to believe the snake survived with its grossly swollen head. It was even harder to believe that it survived several days after that. I didn’t expect to be able to save it, and I still think it’s unlikely that it has survived. But I didn’t want to just leave it.

A few years ago during the worst part of our drought, we put up some plastic fencing around some plants to keep the deer from eating them. We found a dead snake caught in that fencing. I never thought about how dangerous that kind of thing can be.

Friday Felines

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The cats have a good internal clock. They know when they’re hungry. Our three original strays gathered outside the front door to let us know.

Clockwise from top: Dusty, Chloe, Rusty

Clockwise from top: Dusty, Chloe, Rusty

Their internal clocks haven’t been adjusted for the end of daylight savings time.

The devil you say

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Leah and I were just finishing dinner Wednesday night when I happened to look behind my chair, which is right up against the wall. There was a little insect-like thing on the wall, and it took me a second or two to realize what it was.

Baby scorpion, with nickel

Baby scorpion, with nickel

I caught it with a plastic container. It reminded me of the praying mantises we saw last winter

Based on minimal research, this is probably a devil scorpion native to this part of Georgia. I have been stung at least twice in the past by our native scorpions, and it’s not as bad as a yellowjacket. We see them outside all the time.

I took the little scorpion outside and dropped it into some vegetation where I think it will be much happier.

Unfortunately, the little Nikon point-and-shoot camera we use is not the best at focussing, so you can’t zoom this image too much.

Sunrise, sunset

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We had a nice sunrise this morning.

Sunrise, 5 November 2013

Sunrise, 5 November 2013

After sunrise it was mostly cloudy during the day. And then, just as the sun went down, it cleared up enough to get a decent shot of the sunset — only looking east instead of west.

Sunrise, 5 November 2013

Sunrise, 5 November 2013

Sunset looking away from the setting sun gives some nice pastels.

This is the best sunset photograph we have ever taken from our deck, mainly because the setting sun is hidden behind all the trees to the south and west. In the future, we’ll have to try looking away from the sun to see what we get.

 

Where are the foxes?

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We haven’t seen our fox family in several weeks. They may be gone for good.

I am pretty sure their den was down in the woods on the other side of Wildlife Trail, not far from our house. Wildlife Trail runs down the side of our property for a couple of hundred yards to a dead end. The foxes always seem to have come from that direction, and to have run in that direction when spooked. A couple of years ago I saw some fox kits at the edge of the road down there, and I have also heard fox calls coming from that direction. So, I think that’s where the den was.

A couple of weeks ago the county started resurfacing the road. There were deep gullies where the old pavement had washed away over the years. It was so bad that almost no one ever drove down the road. It was a good place for a fox den. But the owner of some property at the dead end has decided to build a house, and he complained enough to the county that they came out to fix the problem.

For almost two weeks the county ran heavy equipment up and down Wildlife Trail all day long. They had graders, backhoes, loaders, dump trucks, rollers, compactors, and tar tankers, not to mention a lot of people. I think the commotion convinced the foxes to move.

I’m also sorry to say that one of our foxes is probably dead. A neighbor up the hill from us told us that he had his son shoot what he thought was a coyote that had been eating cat and dog food at his house. So his son shot what turned out to be a fox.

The resurfacing has been finished since last week, and we have seen no sign of the foxes. Zeke isn’t barking into the dark, and the cat food bowls Leah puts out in the driveway haven’t been licked clean like the foxes used to do. I think they’re gone now, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.