Snake in a tree, and distant turtles
On July 21, 2023, we were walking down on the Nara Trails next to the Pilgrim Rive, and stopped to look at this dead tree that had been being worked over by a woodpecker[1]. And, in the crevice between the dead tree and an adjacent live one, we realized that there was something in there:
And, it’s a garter snake, climbing up the tree! Not having legs or claws, a snake can’t go straight up the side of a tree the way that, say, a squirrel can. But when they have a situation like this, they can kind of work their way up by bracing their back against one tree and pushing up the other. Garter snakes aren’t particularly known for their tree-climbing ability, but they can clearly do it in the right situations.
While we are on the topic of reptiles, we found these turtles a bit later on July 26, 2023.
This was in a pond that is next to the Great Oaks Trailhead, part of the Maasto Hiihto/Churning Rapids trail complex. This particular pond is a popular place for people to stop by and feed the fish. And when we tossed in some fish-food pellets (that’s what you can see floating on the surface), a bunch of what look like painted turtles showed up for a snack as well.
We weren’t all that close to them (maybe 20 – 25 feet away), so the pictures aren’t great, but here’s a reasonable view of a single turtle.
The reptiles that we have around here have specific characteristics in order to get through the winter. They are either aquatic (like turtles), meaning that they can overwinter in the bottom of ponds and streams below the ice, or they can easily crawl under rocks and down rodent holes or other tunnels (like garter snakes) so they can hibernate well under the frost line. While turtles and snakes can do these things, lizards mostly cannot. Which is why we don’t, as a general thing, have lizards up here. The only lizard that could plausibly be around is the five-lined skink, but (a) I have never seen one, and (b) they have stubby little legs and are practically snakes, so they even if the are around here, it is only because they can overwinter the way that snakes do.
[1] We’ve got several species of woodpecker around here, but the ones that make the big excavations like this are generally the largest ones, the Pileated Woodpeckers. These are the ones that are the size of a crow, with bright red crests like Woody Woodpecker has. Woodpeckers make a lot of different kinds of holes in trees, which are described in some detail here: https://natureidentification.com/woodpecker-holes-and-other-sign-on-trees/