Sometimes nature can be bad while being good, confusing while beautiful, and always amazing. Last Friday upon leaving for work I spotted a snake skin beside the front steps. Several feet on down the front walkway lay a small king snake. It was about two and a half feet long. This is the fourth snake I've seen around the property this spring.
There were two different black snakes. I know they were different because the first one was larger than the second one. Then there was a green snake out by the back fence. Actually it was twinned in the fence links, but that's another story.
Miss N says having snakes around is bad, and that they are evil. I suppose that is so, but its also good that they are not poisonous snakes. The king snake will run off and even eat other snakes, especially the poisonous copperheads. Thankfully, I've not seen any of those, and with a king snake around, probably won't. Which is a good thing. So its a bad thing that is a good thing, I guess.
A mocking bird has taken up evening sentry duty in a tall dead tree on the vacant lot behind my back lot. It sings its heart out every evening until almost dark. It has a most remarkable vocabulary of songs from other birds. It has even learned, and frequently calls out with, the red shouldered hawk's mating call. I have a feeling that sooner or later this is going to cause some confusion in the bird world.
One afternoon in late winter, when I first saw one of the red shouldered hawks circling above the tree tops, I mistook it for a red tail hawk, which is also common here. I whistled a call several times, and a red tail flew in from an adjacent area. The two hawks didn't take kindly to each other in the same territory and a slight conflagration ensued. Both birds crashed into a ravine across the road, locked in a feather flinging froth of wings and talons. They then separated and each went their own wounded way.
I'm wondering and waiting to see what happens when that mocking bird hits on an evening when the red shouldered hawks are around. This confusion could be interesting, or amazing, or bad and, who knows, maybe good. Mocking bird calls in the evening, beneath the Carolina Moon.
Click the pic to enlarge it and find the mocking bird.
Posted by Dread, who finally steadied his hand enough to take the above "find the mocking bird pic."
2 comments:
any bluebirds??I long to see a bluebird..sk
Yes, there are bluebirds. They are skittish and elusive though and I haven't been close enough to one to get a decent picture. I put up three bluebird houses this year, but maybe too late. No bluebirds nesting this year. A chickadee built in one then abandoned it.
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