Commonly speaking, this snake is everywhere in Connecticut

I had an experience recently that while it was not the first time it happened, was in fact the first time in a long time.

And it "inspired" me to write this blog, which will be about the "common" garter snake as a species-  in particular the eastern variety – which is Connecticut’s native, and the most common snake overall.

It is the snake most often seen by people who are "casual" observers whether it be on hikes in the woods or in their own "backyard.  This is because that on top of being a common snake to begin with it also spends a good deal of its time in the open during the day at various times whether basking in a stationary position or actively moving and hunting.

 The range of the "common" garter snake essentially spans almost the entire country along with many other species and supposed subspecies, which can vary considerably in color and patterning.

The eastern variety found in Connecticut is almost universally a snake with yellow stripes running along its back and sides. However with that being said the rest of the coloring can vary tremendously among individuals even ones that are closely related, and can include various shades of solid coloring usually a black or yellow or even sometimes almost a faded green or brown/red with distinct or not so distinct checkering or blotching along with this.

Habitats for this species are extensive although typically they are found in places with some ground cover and a source of water, which can of course be virtually anywhere even in major cities such as New Haven and Bridgeport where the snakes are often seen in parks or other heavily trafficked places. Eastern garter snakes are not known for being large and most individuals people see seem to average between eight  and 24 inches but in a few select spots (that I know of) there are some that reach the four foot mark (reasons for this are not entirely clear although an optimum diet is the most popular theory).

Speaking of diet one other thing that has probably allowed this snake to remain so abundant on top of various habitat possibilities is its extensive diet throughout the snakes’ entire lifespan it will be eating various forms of life in large quantities when available (and size appropriate of course)  amphibians of all types, earthworms, insects and other arthropods, slugs, even various small fish.

 I will also mention that I have never in my entire life witnessed it but have heard about this species taking small mammals and birds. It also is quite apparent with its typically amphibian-heavy diet this snake is equipped to handle the variety of toxins amphibians are known to carry on their skin - just another adaptive mechanism of this very common but nevertheless "amazing" species.

Now that you know more about this snake than most people even the ones who may often see them, I will tell you about the experience that led me here.

As I have said previously, tarps/sheets of plastic can be very ideal habitat for various animals because of their moisture and temperature holding properties. Recently I went on a walk as I often do in various places and came upon a large tarp that appeared to have been strewn in a large open field and had been sitting there for quite some time.

 Being me, I lifted it up and low and behold I kid you not there must have been over 20 garter snakes under it of various sizes and ages. This seems to emphasize the point that these snakes are prolific and give birth to live offspring rather than laying eggs and often have numerous young at a time depending on the age/health of the mother in question.

It is also in my opinion always good to know that native wildlife of whatever species is still thriving in the areas it always has been, even with mans ever increasing encroachment.

Eventually I hope to write individual articles on all the snake species of this state when the time is right, but this I feel is a good starting point.

The last thing I will also say is that these articles will generally not be to technical due to the fact that the audience it is geared towards  is often children or simply individuals who are just starting out with little to no knowledge on these subjects and may just want to at least start with the "basics."

It's A Wildlife

Connecticut is not known for its "wilderness.”

However, as many of you probably know, you don’t necessarily need wilderness to observe a variety of wildlife.

As man has encroached more and more on the "natural" habitat of various animals, many have simply adapted - and even the ones that have not adapted per se - still survive in small "pockets" of their natural habitat and can be observed in suburban areas with relative frequency.

The basic concept of this article is how to live side-by-side in relative harmony with said animals to avoid the old cliché of human-wildlife conflict.

Even most "suburban" wildlife avoids people whenever they can - by coming out at night. But with adaptations many animals have had in regards to manmade environments many have also seemingly adapted to man, and lost much of the natural avoidance behavior necessary to keep wildlife out of harm’s way.

This brings me to my first point: With the exception of wild birds, the feeding of wildlife either intentionally or not is generally not a good idea.

Seeing as though food is the primary motivating factor for most species, this can quickly lead to conflict in terms of wildlife becoming used to such things and either becoming dependent on such sources or simply losing their fear of man through such association.

 Obviously when feeding birds, as many folks like to do these days (and sales at feed stores prove it) you are also bound to attract other animals mainly mammals that also will eat seeds. As long as the rest of your yard is not wildlife "friendly" this is not usually a big deal unless these other creatures start to crowd out the birds that the food was originally intended for (as shown in the photos)!

People often encourage animals onto their property unwittingly by doing such things as leaving food out (pet food, garbage, etc) or providing good habitat such as stone walls or housing construction that is not well maintained/sealed off. Of course many of the creatures in cases like these are tiny and harmless and you may never see not to mention are virtually impossible to keep away.

Possible problems are usually related to the "larger" more conspicuous mammals that are known for passing diseases to humans. Though this an extremely rare occurrence in this state it does pay however to keep your pets fully vaccinated at all times and to always feed in a manner that keeps food from sitting in the open for long periods.

Apart from doing your part to limit the access wildlife has to human provided food and habitats, it is beyond the scope of this article to go into the details of eliminating possible habitats to animals that can become somewhat serious pests on top of it.

You will have to simply use your good human attributes of common sense and good judgment for that. Another IMPORTANT point I will make though is that you should use your discretion to keep your pets themselves safe as there are many animals that can pose a threat to them - and don’t be naive about it.

Lastly and this is a very common complaint: how do you keep deer and other wildlife from decimating your well landscaped vegetation? There are only and yes I mean only two ways of doing this: One is to use plants that are not palatable to the animals (you will need to do your research here) and two, somehow keep the plants confined in a way that wildlife cannot get to it.

Yes there you have it, just two ways - and keep in mind none of the chemicals on the market claiming to be a deterrent for such things work.

Note: Photos contributed by Al Santangelo

When people and nature collide

Spring has passed us now, which means that most baby mammals and birds are well on their way to adulthood.

This of course would be for the surviving ones as many of you well know more creatures born in the wild die at some point in their development than make it to maturity. Although spring is behind us this is often the time of year that the lives of wildlife and humans "collide," although not necessarily conflict.

The main reason for this is that with young animals - which by the way for this article  will pertain to birds and mammals only - are in abundance, This can completely change the "picture" so to speak in that humans are getting closer to animals than before by finding young ones that often lack the ability or the "know how" to strictly avoid humans.

This can happen anytime and virtually anyway, however there are some occurrences that are so common that they are worth specifying. The first of these is the finding of a deer fawn without the mother in sight.

You see for the first days of its life deer fawns are meant to stay fairly inactive for long periods huddled down in thick cover and well-camouflaged, hence the spots they posses when first born and for awhile after.

 Some people even say the fawns are "odorless" at this stage though personally I find this hard to believe for many reasons mainly because various mammalian predators that hunt mostly by scent take their toll on fawns at this stage. The  mother deer wanders off at this stage to feed and do what deer do, leaving the fawn concealed by itself.

There are two reasons for this. One is that it pays to avoid drawing attention to something so vulnerable and also it pays to avoid an area where predators may be roaming about at any given time thus saving yourself.

 After all, not nature, a full grown breeding female deer is more important than a fawn since she can simply go on to breed again if the fawn were to be lost. The main point is is that just because a fawn happens to be alone probably just means that the mother is elsewhere, which is normal as mother deer only stop by briefly a few times a day to nurse the fawn and that is it.

Usually fawns this young are so well camouflaged that you will walk right by them if they happen to be there and never see them. When people do it is usually sheer luck (stepping on their spot) or things such as mowing over their cover, or the pet dog unexpectedly sniffing them out, which is what happened in the photo above.

This is also a reminder for all dog owners to keep their animals under control at all times as this is also a common way humans and wildlife conflict, the reason for holding the fawn here was so the dogs (not mine) could taken away as they were roughing it up pretty good.

After a short while however fawns - although they will still remain concealed for long periods - will make every effort to avoid humans when they approach to closely completely eliminating the problem of people finding fawns they can actually "catch" and think are abandoned.

Keep in mind he basic information from this article that if you see a fawn anywhere it is most likely fine and its mother will be around to attend to it when the time is right (unless you have direct evidence the mother is dead in which case a call to a wildlife specialist could be warranted) If the fawn MUST be handled for any reason this can be done without fear of the mother rejecting it because of human scent but as was done in the photo above once ascertaining the fawn was fine they should always be put straight back in the wild to avoid undo stress

If it's not exactly where they were found, then as close as possible to the sight such as when their cover has been mowed over.

An animal that is usually discovered through similar or even identical circumstances are young cottontail rabbits. Once these animals leave the nest a few weeks after birth although they are not weaned entirely yet, they remain in cover typically in separate locations with the mother coming around to nurse them often no more than once a day.

The same scenario would follow upon discovering this animal and again even though alone they are not abandoned. The third occurrence that is most common is the discovery of young birds that appear to be out of their nest. Often this is normal as when young birds are growing and fledging they will often leave the nest on their own accord even if it means tumbling a decent ways to the ground.

If you see a young bird on the ground that can't fly away yet has most of its feathers and is alert with its eyes open chances are it is time for it to be out of the nest although depending on its age the parents may still be feeding. It as a fact of nature many young birds at this time do get taken by predators before fledgng out completely for obvious reasons.

Even with this being so it is best to let nature take its course as you probably know predators have a very limited affect on the bird population at large. If you happen to find a bird on the ground that your common sense says should not be there (i.e. featherless, eyes closed) the best thing to do is to put it back in the nest it came from and hope it will not fall out again until the time is right.

Your local vet's office or better yet animal shelter should know a local person that can be called upon to handle wildlife.

Keep in mind that if you do feel the wildlife in question requires "rescuing" you must get in touch with a specialist immediately as possessing any native bird and most mammals for any "uneccesary" length of time is unlawful.

A bite among friends

Here is a quick story I will tell mostly for its entertainment value.

When I was a small child of five years old I, like many other children my age, started kindergarten, and during the typical schooldays there would be a "recess" period that when weather permitted would include a stint outside in what I guess was a typical schoolyard,

Part of this was a grass "lawn."

Although in a rather urban setting, the school was at the time right next to a working farm and was also surrounded by a decent amount of woods and open field.

While interesting, this doesn't really matter too much since heavily populated urban environments have never really stopped the good old common garter snake from holding its own in the wild.

You may have a good guess as to what follows and that is that one day while class was outside a garter wandered into the grass of the schoolyard. Knowing immediately what it was, I did what was most natural to me even at that age and picked it up.

Needless to say, my classmates were a bit thrown off and quite impressed by this novelty.

The really funny part came a few seconds later, however, after two middle-aged women who were the ones in charge of the class caught wind of all the excitement. They of course in some way were probably more thrown off than the class of young children.

All would have probably gone fine as after showing off my impressive find I could have simply set it back in the grass and allowed it o go on its way.

But at this moment the snake chose to do what snakes sometimes understandably do at moments like these and promptly bit me on the hand that was holding it.

As you can imagine, although this meant nothing to me, after the snake let go and I was able to set it down there was a major hullabaloo in the school with me being ushered into the nurses office and sitting through a phone call to my mother. The caller in a panicky voice was saying “now I don’y mean to alarm you but your son was bitten by a snake.”

 I'm sure the shock they got when my mother was so casual and straightforward about it was even greater than the actual "incident" itself.

Although at the time I didn’t really know what all the fuss was about, the gist of it was that the people who saw this happen had no idea this was a regular occurrence in the life of a five year old boy fully understood by the boy’s own mother.  They were worried about the possible outcomes if the opposite was true.

I don’t really remember much more except that for a very short period of time I had a certain level of fame and respect among my class and was even told at one point to go around the circle of children and show them the bite, which as snake bites usually are was nothing more than a few pinpricks.

Perhaps this was meant to be a lesson for them though I am happy to report it’s a lesson I have never learned and never will.

A snake in the grass is a good thing

Even in this age of so called environmental "enlightenment" snakes often receive a bad reputation.

This, at least in my opinion, is completely undeserved.

In fact the opposite is actually true.

Here’s why.

One thing that is universal among all snakes is that all snakes are designed to be predators; some are completely specialized, while others are more "loose" with their food choices depending upon things such as season, life stage, and other factors. This is not to say some snakes will not consume dead food should they happen upon it at times, just that they are in fact designed to capture and kill their own prey as this is typically what they find when in the wild state.

Most people are aware that there are some snakes that are designed to and prefer to eat small mammals and rodents in particular, and most people are also aware that certain rodent species can be very destructive to man and his property, which has been proven time and again throughout human history.

With this in mind, it is important to note that snakes serve a beneficial role towards man by controlling populations of rodents, which might otherwise grow to dangerous numbers. This is in fact true not only over most of the U.S. and Canada but throughout much of the world at large.

Suffice is to say that there are quite a number of rodent-eating snake types throughout the world. Many snakes when conditions are ideal are voracious feeders with metabolisms higher than you might expect for a snake and are able to eat large quantities.

Many snake species do a good "cleanup" job of this as well by not only eating the parent rodents but by consuming the entire nest of young ones as well, therefore getting to the root of the problem.

Don't get me wrong, when human safety becomes an issue because of venomous or otherwise dangerous snakes being too close to human habitation, we obviously need to take certain steps to rectify this situation.

However, harmless snake species are just that - harmless - and should always be left alone even when near human habitation as all they can do is good.

As I have often said in the past, any wild animal left to its own devices in its ideal environment typically avoids humans at all costs as it carries out its role in the ecosystem.

Think about this next time you hear about snakes being portrayed in a negative light as well as this one of many "unexpected" ways that they and other creatures benefit the often much less beneficial creature, man himself.

Hot and cold: It takes some work for a herp

Most people have heard the term "cold blooded" and may even have a vague sense of what it means.

As opposed to "warm blooded," it means that the internal temperature of the animal in question remains the same regardless of and dependent upon the outside temperature.

However, the more correct terms used are ectothermic and endothermic. Ecto means outside for “cold blooded" and endo means inside for "warm blooded," or producing internal heat.

 All reptiles and amphibians are ectothermic just as all mammals and birds are endothermic. Many invertebrates and fish however are not so clear cut and are beyond the scope of this blog to discuss in detail just yet.

Either way this concept all boils down to a process called thermoregulation, which has been mentioned before on this blog but not really explained. The concept is easy to understand as when focusing on reptiles and amphibians, which are all ectothermic, we know that they all rely on their outside environment to control their internal temperature. Depending on what the herp  (generic term encompassing all reptiles and amphibians hence herpetology) is, they have many ways of doing this, most notably by "basking" in the sun to warm up and seeking cover in the shade to cool down.

These basic methods vary considerably in context, as does the average temperature the species in question requires to be active. There also are other factors such as moisture, humidity and water, which of course is vitally important for many turtle species and also all amphibians.

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Nature in 90 sneak peek

Take a quick peek at one of the natural settings available to see in Greater New Haven if you get out there and look.

Not so sure what's slithering through your yard? Ask us!

Many people across Connecticut, or perhaps across the world, may know little to virtually nothing about wildlife, and that snakes in particular are an entire category in themselves.

But as I have said before, they are a specialty of mine.

So I can say with there being only fourteen species of snakes in the whole of New England and all of those being in Connecticut, this narrows the possibilities considerably as far as what you might find in your "backyard" or in any outdoor setting you find yourself in.

There are, as I have noted before, for instance, only two venomous species found here. These are the timber rattlesnake and the northern copperhead. The timber rattlesnake is found in only a select few pockets of habitat throughout this state and with it being a slow breeder, the populations here are highly threatened - even endangered - throughout much of its range.

With this being said this is not a snake one is likely to encounter in their "backyard" or even on a hike in the woods - unless you happen to be in an area the snake is known to live in and you are really "looking."

The northern copperhead is much more common, albeit elusive, and with few exceptions is typically not found that close to human habitation. It can be, however, common in areas people frequent such as certain parks and campgrounds. Yet even here these snakes usually remain hidden during the day (being highly nocturnal) and will avoid humans at all costs.  (Not that I don't suggest wearing sturdy shoes when traipsing about areas you are unfamiliar with, especially in the dark.)

But again this is not a snake you are likely to see unless you are actually "looking" Nonetheless people often do encounter snakes (and various other wildlife) seemingly by accident or when they least expect it. This is often nothing more than a "mere streak in the grass" as I say.

For those times when the encounter is longer and you are curious as to what you are looking at or it happens to be "close to home" and you perhaps are concerned or unsettled by it, you may wish to know what it is as soon as possible.

All the snake species in this state are readily distinguishable with practice and none of the harmless types really resemble the venomous ones except in the vaguest sense. Books and field guides are a good place to start learning the ins and outs of snake identity.

I can identify any native snake (and many, many more) on sight, and I can be contacted through this blog to answer any questions or concerns you may have regarding this common but not much talked about issue and may even be willing to travel through the Greater New Haven area if you have a snake you would like identified or any concerns you may have regarding snakes or other wildlife on your property.

As the blog progresses I hope to provide personal detailed photographs and life histories on all the species in question.

You just never know....

No matter what is left around a yard, something is likely to take up residence in it or under it.