Today was just too nice a day to stay indoors.\u00a0 Camera Girl and I went over to our local forest and communed with the trees and birds and babbling brooks and rippling lakes and so forth and so on.\u00a0 She planned to head out to the metropolis and purchase the few necessaries that we still can afford and I planned to get out and take a few photos while I was at play in the fields of the Lord.<\/p>\n
It is a magnificent sunny day.\u00a0 Life is bubbling up from every nook and cranny of the New England earth.\u00a0 But rather than endless shots of ants and worms and spiders I looked for larger subjects.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the only flowers available are the daffodils that are right now at their ephemeral best and the hellebore flowers which tend to be hard to photograph.\u00a0 But I did my best with this limited pallet and somewhere down the line they\u2019ll end up in the Photo of the Day.<\/p>\n
But I was able to capture one very interesting image.\u00a0 I found the first snake of the season.\u00a0 Under a copper sheet that I keep for just such a purpose I found a ringneck snake soaking up the abundant heat that the copper conducted through its surface from the bright sunlight.\u00a0 It looked like it was getting ready to shed and he stuck around for a minute or two and I was able to get a few shots.<\/p>\n
Ringnecks are a very common creature but quite small and secretive.\u00a0 I enjoy finding any snakes on the property.\u00a0 I\u2019ve, of course, found any number of eastern garter snakes and brown snakes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found a northern water snake and several eastern milk snakes.\u00a0 But what I\u2019d really like to find is a black rat snake.\u00a0 This is sort of the apex snake predator of the region.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t rare enough to even gain the almost obligatory threatened status that the wildlife nazis love to burden us with.\u00a0 But they aren\u2019t common in my neck of the woods.\u00a0 They are a jet black here in New England and can theoretically reach seven feet in length although six feet would be a very large specimen nowadays.\u00a0 They are big enough to easily eat a chipmunk or even a squirrel but mostly they feed on mice and birds that they hunt for in nests.\u00a0 They are even able to climb up a tree to find baby birds.\u00a0 Who knows, one day I may find one of these.<\/p>\n
But it was good getting out into the world again.\u00a0 Spring is triumphant.\u00a0 The spring peepers are making themselves heard in the evening and all sorts of creatures are about.\u00a0 I could hear geese in the pond one late night after midnight.\u00a0 And the turkeys showed up about a week ago.\u00a0 I always love hearing their gobbling even if they themselves are hidden in the brush.\u00a0 The painted turtles are back in the pond and bullfrogs have begun banjoing during the day.<\/p>\n
Last week we had seven black vultures in one of the trees near sunset.\u00a0 I took some shots from the house which is a good distance away and shooting into the back lit tree wasn\u2019t that good for the quality of the photos but going out would have spooked them for sure.\u00a0 Stupid vultures.\u00a0 But those pictures will go up soon too.<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019ve got some photos to upload and some plans to make.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got to put together some kind of blind that will allow me to get candid shots of some of the more skittish birds and animals.\u00a0 That\u2019ll take some doing so I\u2019ll have to do some research.\u00a0 But it\u2019s good to be out of the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was just too nice a day to stay indoors.\u00a0 Camera Girl and I went over to our local forest and communed with the trees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263],"tags":[2999,1870,2296,2998],"class_list":["post-14124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-black-vulture","tag-daffodil","tag-hellebore-flowers","tag-ringneck-snake"],"yoast_head":"\n