FOY: Eastern Black Snake

 While Sylvester and I were exploring the western garden when 2 lines streaked across our path. He was curious. When he wouldn't leave that areas I took him inside.  Cloudy but warm day was perfect for snakes getting it on in the garden. Ground hog hasn't opened his rock pile hide yet. Hummingbirds are reported in State College so I put the bird bath and 1 feeder out. Tonight, after the rain, I'll hang the nesting material balls SADP gave me.  

Another chapter in my new book: You have .5 millisecond to identify this.

I think I saw a hawk with a black snake in its talons.  It flew through the trees uphill of the chicken coop hemlock.  At first, I thought it was a falconer's bird lost with jesses, but I didn't hear any bell and the dangle was too long to be jesses.  So, a positive sighting for all you nope-ropers out there.

Black Snake

On our morning walk, we found a small 3 foot Eastern Black Snake lying just off the path stretched out straight trying to warm up. Once I touched him, he coiled up in a defensive pose and vibrated his tail, which makes a convincing imitation of a rattlesnake. These guys have sharp fangs but are not poisonous and they are constrictors that can climb trees to hunt birds nests and other tree dens. They are good at controlling the rodent population so we like seeing them around. We occasionally see them 6 foot in length right up next to our house, which is quite impressive.

Mr. Snakey and Mr. Mouse

Mr. Snakey in the garage. Not just inside the door, but climbing on the dog drying towels and leash pegs. It’s was a small one, but still...
A mouse in the top pot drawer under the stove. The bottom drawer has a wick of peppermint so the dude climbed higher. I heard scratching, Paul opened the drawer and caught him in a pot, carried it to the breezeway where he escaped. Luckily the great Brittany hunter was waiting to save the day. Gambol 1, mouse 0.
Drawer now has its own peppermint wick. Mr. Snakey should work harder.

FOY: Ruby Throated Hummingbird and black rat snakes

We saw our first of the year at the feeder tonight.
Snakes have been out in force this week.

Mr Snakey hanging out.

Probably a 3-4 ft Eastern Black Snake was just hanging out on top of the electrical junction box near our house.  I think he was attracted to the vibration from the electronics in the box and also the small heat that is generated in the box.  I walked by on the way to weed the herb garden, spent about 30 minutes weeding and then took the dogs for a walk in the upper forest.  When we were returning from our walk I looked over at the box and he was still on top, so I got the dogs inside, grabbed my camera, and took these pictures.  It was cloudy out and the camera activated the flash, but the snake didn't even move when I snapped the shots.  He must like his perch.

UPDATE:  Gambol and I shared the chicken yard with a 4'-er as we protected the hens from the fox all afternoon on Sunday.  The snake appeared and disappeared many times, never distressed at the activity around.

FOY

Eastern Black Snake by chicken coop

Wildlife at the Barony

Late in the afternoon we noticed a 4' Eastern Black Rat Snake in the woodpile at the front door.  Paul poked at it until it headed off around the corner under the living room door steps.  We both thought it was going into the air vent.  Paul tried pulling it out by the tail, but that wasn't successful in dragging the bugger out.  Later I let Gambol out that door.  He sniffed and was quite curious about the new odor around the steps.
A bit later a mother bear and 2 silky cubs trundled down the Jennifer trail.  All three looked to be in good condition. Perhaps these were little ones I saw raiding our bird-feeder, which is still wrapped around the tree, 30' up.
Gambol retrieved this girl half way down the upper meadow from one of the wild flower lanes. #15.1
We had a nice visit from Gracie and her Admiral.  They drove 3 hrs, walked around and had lunch for 3 hours, and drove home.  We always appreciate that effort.

No poults from our flagpole nest... and #13.1

 Almost well hidden...

...but not from black snakes.

This girl came from our mid morning walk in the flower lanes, close to where Gambol found her last night.

Wildlife

I sneaked around the evergreens on the forest fringe to see if I could find the tree where Buddy flushed the turkey hen. Sure enough, I found the tree and the eggs, but it appears that the hen has not been back to the next since being scared off by Buddy. of 3, 4, and 2 instead of 3 by 3 by 3. We can recheck the nest in a couple of days to see if they have been moved by the hen at all. We suspect that the hen will not come back, unfortunately.
In the forest near the house I spotted a small (3 foot?) Eastern Black Snake all coiled up in a tight ball.I took a couple of pictures, but did not want to get too close to scare the snake away.

Gambol flushed a fawn this morning, chased it for a while while it squealed, and finally left it 9 (after a short tone).

FOY

Indigo Bunting on the patio
Black snake at the meadow pinch, 2'
Morels, 3, small, lower on the Bears' Lair Trail than last year.

and, Gambol flushed a turkey hen yesterday at the first water bar.  He appeared grateful that Paul called him off.  That hen might be in Ohio by now.

Guess where our snake catcher is!

Carriage House door

Guess where our snake catcher is! Behind door #1, of course.
We returned from a walk in the meadow where we saw 2 rat snakes, one small (3'), and one large (~6'), to find 1 large (~6') lounging in front of the Carriage House door and another, equally large, on the front door stoop inspecting the wood pile we have stored there. A 4 snake (sighting) day and no eggs to share with them!  
They may be congregating under the tarps covering our firewood.

Main house door

Earlier Gambol alerted us to a deer in the meadow and a large snake on the driveway, but the snake was probably one we saw later at the house.
On our after-dinner walk as I looked back from the toy shed down the driveway, one of the speed bumps was dark and wet-- kind of looked like a v-e-r-y large black rat snake imported from the Florida everglades.  I guess snakes were too much on my mind.
Maybe we should have called the homestead Reptile Haven instead of The Barony.

Snakes have come out of hiding

So far, all 4 have been small, 3-4 ft in length. None have been in the chicken coop; the poor girls have enough environmental stress to handle.  This one was on the Jennifer Trail under a daffodil patch.  I spotted it as I was walking to the ginseng plot and the snake just sit still and posed for me.

After we pulled a 6' diameter honeysuckle bush, some garlic mustard, and cut/sprayed a few multiflora off the upper Jennifer Trail, we saw #5: a 5'-er by a red maple tree stump   It was nicely stretched out, cuddling up to the tree, until Paul teased it with his glove.  Then it rattled its tail against the dead leaves and bunched up cobra style.  It was so bunched up, I thought it had an egg in its throat, but  what I was seeing was its belly-side.

Early wildflowers in our WHIP shrub plot

The WHIP shrub plot and pollinator strips are blooming nicely.  The purple flowers are , considered a noxious weed because it seeds aggressively.  Still, in some of the close-up pictures you can see a bumble bee visiting the purple flowers. The blues ones close up by noon.

Dames Rockets	Noxious weeds because they seed so readily.  We pick these and enjoy the flowers so we'll have no seeds. I'm disappointed that wild flower mixes from reputable sources include these.
Blue Flax-- Linum perenne lewisii	Native west of the Mississippi.  these close up in the heat of the day.  Here's another that doesn't make sense in an northeast wildflower mix.
Cheiranthus allionii	Siberian Wallflower are at their best in early to mid-May.

Had a double FOY yesterday:  saw two Eastern Black Snakes close to the electrical junction box near the house.  The first on was out in the open on a patch of ground that didn’t have any vegetation.  This snake was about 3 foot long and when I first saw it, it held its head about 6 inches off the ground to get a better view.  As the dogs and I approached it, the snake zipped back into the forest behind the junction box.  As we continued walking towards the house, another Black Snake appeared in a weed covered depression.  It was a little larger, about 4 foot long and as the dogs walked over it, (without even noticing the snake), the snake rapidly crawled into the forest in the same area as the first snake.  First of the year snakes, but both were fairly small in size compared to the typical 6 foot ones we find in the chicken coop!
The cherry trees are show lots of immature cherries on their branches now, more proof that the freeze and frost of last week did not do any real damage. My apple tree is another issue as it is not showing any apples. This tree was partially girdled by a rodent chewing the bark off the tree down at the soil line. Its partner apple tree was chewed so much that it just fell out of the ground this spring. The cool season WHIP plot shows a dead strip of grass that I sprayed earlier in the spring. This was a strip that was missed when we applied herbicide last year. This plot was planted last year in alfalfa, yellow sweet clover, bird’s foot trefoil, slender wheatgrass, Austrian winter pea, and flat pea. I did some over planting by broadcasting winter peas and wheatgrass this spring. The plot now shows a lot of alfalfa and trefoil greening up nicely. The warm season WHIP plot was planted in switchgrass, big bluestem, little bluestem, indiangrass, purpletop, orchardgrass, Canada wildrye, and a wildflower mix. I did some additional over planting this spring by broadcasting big bluestem, and switchgrass. This plot now shows a lot of clover, some white wildflowers in bloom, and just the beginning of several grass varieties. We should be seeing the switchgrass and bluestem grasses emerging as the warmer weather arrives.

Mr. Snakey just won't give up

This was our 5+ ft Eastern Black Snake that I have relocated at least 3 times in the past few days.  There's no telling how many eggs he's devoured. Obviously, I did not move him far enough away from the chicken coop, as he found his way back twice without any problem or maybe we have more than 1 big guy. Today when I found him inside the coop in the nesting box, I lifted him into a big Rubbermaid tub.  I put the lid on and carried the tub to the ATV, placed it in the seat next to me and with one hand firmly on the lid I drove downhill to the brush pile about 400 ft from the house, below the Toy Shed. The snake crawled out of the tub and then headed right into the brush pile, so maybe this will be his new haunt.  Only time will tell.

Reading12: 45Escaping the Twilight ****Sigrid Weidenweber  The detailed descriptions of customs (female genital mutilation) and lifestyle give a deep, insight into the Sudanese culture, as well as entry into the cloaked world of Muslim women in a story about survival, tradition and triumph. Hard to read subjectively but well written.
44Spirit Horses *** Alan Evans   In the hills of Tennessee, Shane Carson, a gifted, nationally-recognized horseman, is living the good life. When a mysterious mustang shows up on his farm, Shane doesn’t know how—or why—the horse appeared, but the horse’s distinctive brand identifies her as one of the Spirit Horses, a rare, wild herd that runs free on the Shoshone reservation in Wyoming. Watched over for centuries in the tribe’s ancestral valleys, these exquisite horses, according to belief, provide a link to the afterlife.  When his family dies in an car accident, Shane  loses his will to live—but for one promise he made to his young son: to return the mustang to her rightful home. You know he's going to fall in love and save the horse but the ending does supply a twist that fits the story well.
43The Folks at Fifty-Eight *** Michael Patrick Clark  Gerald Hammond is the exception to the rule; an honorable spy, whose lofty principles have brought him nothing but loneliness and isolation. Catherine Schmidt is the stunning young daughter of an assassinated spymaster, whose murderous quest for vengeance has left her at the mercy of the infamous Head of Soviet State Security.
On a covert operation, in Soviet-occupied Germany, Hammond has no knowledge of the unseen forces that sponsor and oppose his mission. He only knows that he must somehow save her to save himself, but, as ever-more disturbing revelations come to light, begins to wonder where the greater threat is.
Set against a factual background of government conspiracy, and one of the most audacious espionage coups in history, the Folks at Fifty-Eight is a beautifully-paced tale of seduction, betrayal, blackmail, and murder that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction.
42An Angel with Fur ****Russel Blake  An Angel With Fur is the heartwarming true story of Lobo the miracle dog. Rescued as a puppy from an animal shelter in Mexico, Lobo's saga is a life-affirming romp chronicling his growth, adventures and challenges.
41Discreet Activities ***Claude Bouchard  As a result of information gathered via electronic surveillance by intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Canada, a budding terrorist organization, the Army for Islam or AFI, is suspected of planning an attack, its target possibly NYC, Burlington, Vermont or even Canada's famed Montreal.
When four foreign students from Pakistan with known ties to the AFI's Montreal cell arrive in the area on New Year's Eve, Discreet Activities' head, Jonathan Addley, along with Chris Barry and other DA consultants are more than willing to take on the additional workload.
After two of the DA team members die violently in an AFI related suicide-bombing, the job becomes getting revenge on those responsible for this Holy War...
(Kindle summaries)

Mr. Snakey relo day

Tonight I found Mr. Snakey back in the coop but since we'd been collecting eggs all day, he probably was hungry.  Paul had a surprise for him!  A large rubbermaid bin and a 300" walk downhill to the brushpile near the garden.  Within seconds of release he was gone into the grass in the direction of the pile.

 Crikey, he's a big one!

Freedom!

 Just the tail is visible.

More adventures with Mr. Snakey

 Open wide.

Paul and the snake must be getting used to each other. We lost 2 eggs today.  Relocation in in the near future: unless these guys show us they are keeping the rodent population near the house down, they will find plenty of food in the meadow.

Gambol diversifies

Gambol: Grrrrr.
Leslie, looking into the forest over Gambol's head:  I don't see anything.
Gambol: GRrrrr.
Paul, looking down the driveway for rabbits:  There's nothin...Oh! look!

The 4'-er was just of the patio among the flock. The hens didn't mind and the snake just glided on by. 

To my egg customers:

The girls are having some issues.  We lost one last week to an owl.  Some seem to be laying in the forest.  We're keeping them in the coop till noon instead of 6:30AM trying to reset their little minds and remind them what the nest boxes are for.  Now they are hiding eggs in the coop, but that's a lot easier to find than in the forest. And one is broody which means that she sits on nonexistent eggs until they hatch(!), taking up a nest box and forcing the others to lay in the forest?  And now there's a snake to bother them!  It's a never ending circus. So I may have to send you to another source for a week or so until we get our issues resolved.

Mr Snakey again

When I got back home from shopping almost all of the chickens were at the front door--I figured something must have moved them away from the coop. Sure enough Mr Snakey was inside on the floor.  I got the camera and took a couple of pictures and then I picked him up and moved him back outside where he quickly moved under one of the log piles.  I checked back inside the coop for egg shells but found none.  The black hen was also on a nest with one egg, so maybe Mr Snakey did not have a chance to get into the nesting boxes.