I did a reptile display for a conservation group in Independence, Ohio called "I CARE" yesterday. They are trying to preserve an area of land from construction. The land in question is where I used to catch reptiles when I was a kid. I have not been there in a looooonnnnnggg time and heard that there was now a pond in the area made by beavers. I decided that maybe I should check out this land I was helping to preserve. So today I made it up there around noon. The Beaver Pond was easy to find - there were plenty of painted turtles out basking. I started walking around the pond and saw a medium-sized water snake swimming across the water. "Cool," I thought. I didn't walk around for very long, but as I was leaving, a large black snake shot across the path in front of me and into a pile of rocks. I knew the snake was gone and there was no hope in catching it. I tried to figure out what it might have been. Since it was near the water, it very well could have been a water snake. But it seemed longer than a typical water snake, so I thought that maybe it was a black rat snake.
As I was pondering this, I saw another snake watching me from a hole in the ground several feet away from the rock pile. Even though the snake was some distance away, I recognized its black face mask and immediately knew that it was a blue racer, a snake which I haven't seen in 20 years. I had to catch it. Reaching down into a hole to retrieve a racer will get you bitten, but I'm not very easily deterred when it comes to catching a prize snake. I reached in and grabbed it. It "grabbed" me back and started chewing on my forearm. I had that snake and it had me - I was mighty pleased. I decided to take it home to shoot some photos of it. On the way back to the car, I caught a water snake (while holding the blue racer). I considered taking the water snake with me too, but I had my hands full.
While driving home and later photographing the snake, I began to speculate that the original snake that I saw was a black racer. Black and blue racers intergrade where their ranges overlap. While herping the Carolinas in the springtime, I'd often see courting black racers in close proximity to each other. The blue racer that I had captured was a female. Upon returning to the site to release the snake, I decided that I'd open the box that I had the snake in and let it crawl back into it's hole. Racers are extremely high strung, and although I would have liked to have gotten some photos of the snake in its natural habitat, I knew it wasn't likely that the snake would stay still.
I opened the box and the snake stuck its head out, flickered its tongue twice, and shot out of the box and into its hole in the ground. As I stood up, there was the original black snake that I saw. He was only a few feet away, trying to figure out what happened to his mate. I managed to get a couple shots of him, but they came out a little blurry. Nevertheless, it was a pretty darn exciting day to be herping. Below are two photos of the blue racer, as well as a pic of the black racer.
Tim
