A strange visitor

The other day my neighbor Steven Giampetruzzi uploaded  a couple of pictures to the website documenting his recent close encounter with a rather large specimen of northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon). From the picture it looks to be at least 3′ long and quite healthy looking, don’t you think?

I know some people are freaked out by snakes, but you shouldn’t let water snakes bother you because they’re harmless, non-venemous, and they eat leeches among other things. I’d always been told there were water snakes in Clary Lake, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I actually saw one for the the first time. One afternoon I was sitting on my dock relaxing when I spotted what I thought was turtle swimming slowly toward me. As it got closer I could see it was a snake’s head, sticking out of the water like a submarine’s periscope. It got to within about a yard of the dock where I was sitting when it spotted me, and submerged. It was almost as big as the one in this picture. It turned out it was living under my dock and I I continued to see it and a smaller snake in the area off and on for the rest of the summer.

In any case, thanks Steve for uploading those awesome pictures! And a reminder to the rest of you, feel free to upload your own pictures to the site using the Picture Upload Page or just email them to me and I’ll post them.

I got an email update from Diane at Avian Haven today reporting that the loon they’re taking care of is showing signs of improvement and an added surprise- she was able to track down some information about the loon that turned up dead over by the shore by Hodsdon Lane last year in July (picture at left). I had mentioned to her that we’d found a dead loon and that it had been sent to Tufts University but we hadn’t heard back anything. At the time my State Wildlife Biologist friend Keel Kemper told me that Loon-on-Loon fighting was a common cause of loon mortality. It would appear that was the case with the bird from last summer.

George — I am happy to report that your loon lived the night and is showing slight improvement today.  She had refused fish yesterday afternoon, but ate quite readily this morning.  She is also spending more time in the water and less time on the haul-out.  She is still quite lethargic, preferring to drift quietly rather than swim around (much less dive),  but we are seeing some signs for the better, and are hopeful that they will continue. 

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