June 30, 2019: The Garden Help Loses its Skin

Summer arrived in full force this week with some nice hot humid weather and several waves of good old thunderstorms.  On one warm sunny morning I saw our friendly garter snake basking at our front step again, and I thought it looked particularly dark and shiny.  Then a few minutes later Linda called to show me what she had found among her flowers:

A ghost of a snake

It was a perfect snake skin that our garden attendant must have just shed.  I was able to extract it intact from being entangled among the flowers, and it was still flexible enough to straighten it out and measure it - it was 30-1/2 inches long, but in reading about snake sheds I learned that a shed is actually much longer than the snake itself.  [Ref:  Wikipedia]  A snake exits its old skin through the front after rubbing on a rough surface to loosen it up.  It then wriggles out starting at the mouth, which leaves the shed inside out as the snake literally crawls out of its own skin.  [Ref:  Wonderopolis]  This one left a perfect replica of itself.

I can't say whether it's inside out or not, but it sure looks like the edges of the mouth have been turned up.

The fact that our snake is growing and needs to shed proves it's earning its rent-free housing under our front step.

Our tenant shows off its shiny new skin.

The summer weather this week also provided opportunities for warm morning paddles, and there was a lot to see on the water, including wild iris blooming all along the shorelines.

Yellow Flag on the Roger Harris Natural Area.  (Iris pseudacorus)

Larger Blue Flag near Sheep Island.  (Iris versicolor)

I also had an encounter with a beaver that let me know it was not amused with my presence in its cove.

Mr. Beaver on a morning swim off the Marion Preserve just before giving me a stark warning with a tail slap.

The initial slap of the flat tail on the waters sends the loud alert.

The force of the slap pushes his hind feet  right up in the air

which results in a pretty nice splash.

And finally, I did come across our loon family which continues to thrive with both chicks seeming to grow daily - as well as being well behaved.

Harley and Davidson are growing quickly.  Photo by Debby Crowley.

A good sized minnow goes down the hatch.  Photo by Debby Crowley.

Perhaps you heard the news from Pleasant Lake up in New London.  The loon pair there had two chicks, but apparently abandoned one of them.  An alert went out to everyone on the lake that one chick was missing, and soon thereafter someone found the little guy all by itself.  When it was reintroduced to the family, the larger chick pecked at it mercilessly while the parents watched and did nothing.  So the biologists from the Loon Preservation Committee rescued it and brought it to a rehabilitator who determined is was very undernourished but other wise healthy, so it will be cared for and eventually returned to the wild.  This behavior is common among birds and other animals;  it even has a term:  siblicide.  The parents somehow decide it is best to commit all their attention to the larger and stronger chick.  But we appear to have no such problem at Lake Wicwas.

Harley and Davidson appear to be good friends.

Perhaps it helps that there was very little time separation between the hatching of Harley and Davidson so they are nearly the same size.

And lets not forget we have a second nest yet to produce.  As of this morning mom or dad is still on the nest tending to the eggs, but we should have new chicks by next weekend.

They sure did a nice job decorating the nursery.  Photo by Debby Crowley.

Thank you Debbie for sharing those great photos!