Rasta

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD
Nova Scotia is home to five species of snakes. (not even scary sizes)
https://naturalhistory.novascotia.ca/resources/reptiles-and-amphibians-nova-scotia/nova-scotia-snakes

The Eastern Smooth Green, we've always called them a Grass snake. Their mouth is so tiny, you couldn't fit your baby finger in it. "They eat insects in the garden," I told my wife, and she said, "someone else's garden."

Here's the BIG SCARY Grass snake, safely located. Massive 8-10 inches long.
It's a beautiful snake. Lovely disposition. Just looking for a garden.

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD

This is the biggest baddest snake we own. It will snap at the laces in your sneakers if you step on one. They have no teeth, venom, and lack personality ,but.. Harmless. Ignore them. It's worth noting, the next part of this story has no photo, but is an important part in the history of my wife's mental health.. 😂​
We boated out to McNabs island for a hike one day, and found the largest snake I'd seen in Nova Scotia. My son held it up, waist high. Can I keep it?

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD .. <Coles condensed version>
IF (BIG IF) the snake stays inside the glass aquarium, you feed and clean, never let it loose... OK.. and my son named the snake ROCKY. Wow, was it big. We setup the aquarium in his room (my office now) and the next morning, screams... my wife was waking him, and she thought it was looking through the glass, but it was on the outside. They can really squeeze through tiny openings. Some crying, and he got to keep Rocky anyway

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD
The next day was the most special day in my adult life. My wife's too! I'd never seen live birth before? Have you? 29 tiny baby snakes were born in front of amazed kids, one astonished adult and one terrified adult. Super cool. Wish we had digital photography them. So, ROCKETTE as we called her, was a Mama. A good mama, I thought she was eating them, but she was protecting them. If handled too close, she'd eat a couple babies and spit them out when danger passed!! Wow

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD Well, one day at work (I was in the Navy), I got a phone call from a coffee shop near my home. My wife was there.. odd that she was out for coffee? She was really excited too, and she said she was not coming home, until 30 snakes were located and removed forever from the home. Every snake was gone from the room. EVERY SNAKE. Even I was concerned at this point, do they nest in homes? Rushed home from work to get the snakes,/. 23, 25.. or was that 24?. Think I got them all

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD
even if I didn't find them all, we never saw another one. I found a place where teens were becoming a problem in public green space and set them free there. Teens aren't afraid of snakes, well, I didn't think so, but they drove away the teens.
Back to my snake story.. My entire life, I never saw live birth of snakes.
Do you know snakes don't swim on the ocean? They'd die of hypothermia, if you see a snake at sea, it was dropped there, you never see it?
And then..

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD So, from our recent #herpetology discussions, you'd recognize this as the harmless Garter Snake, the largest snake in #NovaScotia, and not a really big one. It's out on the #ocean? It sees our boat and wants in. My wife, remember her fear? She'd let that snake drown or freeze to death or be eaten by a great white, but she won't save it. She's a callous brute, I say! 😂​ I've never seen a snake in the ocean. I was in the Navy 33 years. This is new to me too
#Moosehead

Close-up again of the snake on the ocean, and a circle around with text. A strange sight on the open sea, approximately 1 km off Moosehead Beach, while fishing for Mackerel, we spotted a snake bobbing along the top of the choppy sea swells. Eventually, he tried to get into our boat, but my crew (my wife) forbid that

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD I didn't grow up in Nova Scotia, I wasn't even born here, but I have all my relatives here, and spent many a summer playing in forests and streams. But the next few snakes, I had never encountered in all that time.
I pick rocks. I mean, I do a lot of rocking up walls, and pick big flat rocks up when I see them, throw them in back, take them home.
I lifted one, and found this:

The Northern Redbelly Snake

4 of our snakes are just so tiny?
We have bugs bigger !

Same tiny snake, mug shot from the left this time.
What's up with this snake? I could roll it up into a thumb thimble. It's not bigger than a worm
Still holding it with one hand, trying to get accurate photos (before I knew what the name was) and then we did the catch-release program far from my wife.

Rasta, 1 year ago

@Melinda #Snakes #THREAD It's hard to get a clear ID from my photos, but this appears to be the last in the series of tiny snakes that I have a photo of..

The Northern Ribbon Snake

Another one that I've probably not seen before because of where it likes to live, near sandy rocky warm areas.
Most of my #Nature Walks and #Adventures have been since I retired. More time and curiosity about things. Didn't know we had 5 snakes? Now I've seen it all; or have I? Remember my wife's fear of snakes?

Same tiny black snake, but this time, there's a bit of yellow, so it's probably the Northern Ribbon snake