We'll Have to Be Careful In the Morning

This little snake, who appeared to have recently eaten, wasn't fond of us trying to document his or her presence. It finally took off, sidewinding at a good clip, only to disappear somewhere inthe vicinity of the front porch. We lack the snake charming, er rather, snake catching skills of our neighbor, so will have to resort to crossing our fingers that it finds a better venue soon.




We've both been ever so busy, even after two weeks (and doesn't time fly?), with organizing and unpacking. Who knew that we'd accumulated so much "stuff"?



I have gotten my little office all set up and have been diligently driving to town every morning to do my telecommuting. I'm rather pleased with it all, the DSL speed provided is quick indeed. I had a bit more excitement than I would have preferred last week when the restaurant downstairs had a bit of a fire, which rumor had it, was caused by some careless cigarette-smoking workers and a stack of cardboard boxes. It was all very chaotic and let me tell you I boogied right on out of there. There wasn't much damage evidently, luckily, but that was all just a bit much on top of having to smell all the smoke from the Big Meadows fire.

Snakes Coming Out of Hibernation

As usual, the time to leave the ranch came up sooner than we would have preferred on Sunday,and we got out a bit late. Of course, it was imperative before we left that we went to smell the Cecille Brunner rose that is amazingly fragrant right now and blooming near the back gate on the path to the compost barrel.

And we also had to spend some time identifying a little snake the Dinosaur found hiding in an overturned bucket. This process was a bit amusing because we were each looking at different guidebooks and one book called this snake a California Whipsnake and the other called it a Striped Racer. We went back and forth for a minute, pointing out markings until Dino finally asked what the Latin name in my book was. Oh. Same Latin name. Same species. Since whipsnakes seem to be a subset of racers, we'll go with Striped Racer. Supposedly, these snakes are very quick and aggressive, but this particular individual must have been very sleepy from having just woke up from his or her winter nap and stayed in the bucket very pleasantly posing.

Quiet Pools and Lizards

It's been an embarrassingly long time since we've posted, yours truly had social and work obligations to attend to for the last two weekends and The Dinosaur was at Dryad Ranch alone. Although pictures were taken and activities were undertaken, alas, no posting.

Today we took our usual walk to the river, up around the Northwest Territory and thence to the Upper Spring. Our picnic lunch took place under our favorite Oregon Ash tree above a small pool of the Chowchilla, a tree the Dinosaur believes has familial ties to the bodhi tree, although neither one of us claims more than semi-enlightenment at best.

At the Upper Spring, when not meditating, er snoozing, we were rewarded by sightings of nuthatches, bushtits and this lovely couple: an oak titmouse and a sun-lazy lizard.

We walked to the tree that houses the Cooper's Hawk nest but it appears the hawks themselves have moved on. They were there two weeks ago but not since. However, the area around the nest tree is nicely coated with with a circle of splatterings that serve as a reminder of their presence. Now that we know that area is being used by these hawks, we will certainly remember to go back next year to see if the nest is reused.

Dino did some tidying up last week, removing some nasty mud wasp nests from behind the cushions of our favorite Adirondack chairs on the front porch and did a manly-man job of (how shall we say nicely) removing the threat of an inordinate number of black widows that had taken up residence in the garage. Praying Horse was extremely pleased that said chairs also received a nice coating of wood stain.

The Saurus also cleaned out the house finch nest in this lantern. We believe they raised two broods in it this year, although we are still stumped as to how they actually managed to get inside. There were actually three other nests, two under the front porch eaves and the other on a big oak tree not far away.

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Our nature walk yesterday was awesome as ever - we certainly saw a variety. And as my title implies, lots of natural nature. We saw a dead skunk in one of the little creeks - there wasn't much left of the body of it, but we could tell what it was from the head and the bit of tail left, and (sorry this is going to be kind of icky) a coyote had taken a big poop right in the middle of the whole thing. What the heck, the coyotes poop on everything interesting. You'll be thrilled to know that I did not take a picture of this mess.

While we were walking to our picnic rock by the river, my husband started to step over a rock, yelped and backed up fast. I knew what that meant - rattler! Usually they don't come out of hibernation till May timeframe, but it was warm yesterday, so I guess this one wanted some rays. It didn't buzz and was quite calm and let me take a snap. And isn't it cute nestled in among the spring wildflowers?

As long as I'm on the subject of various "undesirables", the scorpions are busy too. I found one on the hallway floor last night just outside the pantry. The ones we get around here are tiny, but pretty basically revolting anyway. I tried to get that little number onto a piece of paper to escort outside, but it scurried under the pantry door and it's lurking in there somewhere. They get in between the plates in the cupboards too, I always am re-washing because ewww. (Apologizing to scorpions, I'm sure they have their place in the grand scheme of things.)

And then, while we were watching a little white-breasted nuthatch foraging on an oak tree, a kestrel flies into the same tree, trying to catch that very nuthatch. Only about 8 feet away from us! It didn't succeed, possibly having been distracted by humans it wasn't expecting. We like the kestrels and all, but we like nuthatches too!

And last, we found a hatched wild turkey egg. Gooooooo turkeys!

Western Fence Lizard

Although there are other types of lizards that share Dryad Ranch with us, the most common is the Western Fence Lizard. We believe the particular subspecies here is the San Joaquin Fence Lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis biseriatus. The males of this species have blue underbellies, while their topsides are typically of light gray to black blotched coloration. Evidently they can change their coloration allowing them to blend nicely with whatever they are choosing to sun themselves on at the moment. They are typically six inches long from head to tail-tip.

The fellow in this picture was observed catching some rays on top of some rocks while we were out and about yesterday. You can just see a little of his blue underside.

These lizards like to sit on top of rocks and fence posts to warm up as well as to keep an eye out for prey. They eat spiders, beetles, flies, caterpillars and various other insects. They are inactive during cold weather and hibernate during the winter. We started seeing lizards this year in late February.

One interesting feature of fence lizards is that their blood contains some factor that destroys the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Evidently, if a larval tick feeds on a Western Fence Lizard, the spirochetes carrying the Lyme disease are destroyed. It’s nice to think that our little scaly friends may also be keeping us protected from this unpleasant disease! Here's a link to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle giving additional information about the connection between Fence Lizards and Lyme Disease: Link