PENTAX Optio WP
ƒ/3.3
6.3 mm
1/50
50

This little fellow was doing the transverse wave on the pool cover. He got annoyed by the macro flash and bolted toward me. Hmm, I am starting to feel like an animal paparazzi.

Which reminds me… Aren’t the youngsters supposed to come out in spring?

The juvenile animal parade just continues: grasshopper, quail, bobcat, hungry hawk, confused hawk, black widow, tadpoles, blue heron, and ’coon! What’s next?

18 responses to “Snakeskin Vinyl”

  1. !MimosaMicheMichelle! Avatar
    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    This snake might have enjoyed the smooth surface of the pool cover.

    A few days ago, I saw an excellent show on PBS on snakes. They even showed snakes shedding their old skins. It was from a four part series. I saw the show on alligators and on turtles, not yet on lizards.

    This is an interesting visitor. If you had lived in certain areas of Florida, you would have found an alligator in your pool while going for a late night or early morning dip. They feed at dawn and dusk and they often wander on people’s properties. So a snake is better, especially if harmless to you.

    Nice photo. I think that you are simply attracted to these creatures because others might not pay as much attention or take photos of these encounters. We notice what we wish to notice.

    Reply
  2. zenera Avatar
    zenera

    …more messages, your animal inbox is overflowing, better get interpreting…:)

    Reply
  3. drona Avatar
    drona

    That’s Wild! Love the beautiful contrast…now did you make him go on that pool cover!? Here’s mine, he was having a snack in the pool cover box . Check out Jennifer’s snake…he was actually sitting on her couch. This is a gopher snake I believe. I’ll post another one that I found a few weeks ago.

    Reply
  4. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Rodents just keep getting the shaft! With the hawk, bobcat and now this, I can see more clearly now how they are the bumper crop for the local ecosystem. But, a gopher-eater is a friend of mine! (p.s. Jennifer link fix)

    I didn’t make the snake go on the cover; I just found him there when I was opening it. He was mightly surprised when his world started sliding laterally, and I was surprised to see "snakes on a pool". 😉

    Zen – oui. Just like my email inbox. Got a rabbit photo tonight. Still waiting for the wily coyote… Hopefully, I won’t get any spam… 😉

    Reply
  5. !MimosaMicheMichelle! Avatar
    !MimosaMicheMichelle!

    I wrote to Drona a few minutes ago about the bad link.

    Reply
  6. drona Avatar
    drona

    Fixed that link problem. Sorry about that.

    Your guy has that nice stripe on his nose. Hmmm…let me go check the other shot that I took.

    Reply
  7. oklo Avatar
    oklo

    That’s a remarkable photo. Exquisite balance in the asymmetry.

    Reply
  8. Deadhead Daisy Avatar
    Deadhead Daisy

    That is a beautiful shot!! What kind of snake is he?

    Reply
  9. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Eppie: will do! Saw hundreds of Canadian geese today, and some other fine critters.

    Daisy: We’re thinking gopher snake. Rattles its tail like a rattler. Drona is looking into it. Hey… a real deadhead?

    oklo: merci… you are an aficionado of asymmetric balance! (Do you see recurring patterns in nature that echo exoplanet orbits?)

    thanks Mimosa!

    Reply
  10. oklo Avatar
    oklo

    Definitely.

    The undulations of the snake remind me of the librations executed by bodies trapped in one-to-one mean-motion resonance. In these situations, two planets (or in the case of Saturn’s Janus and Epimetheus, two moons) dance uneasily about a common orbital period:

    dynamics of the horseshoe orbit

    It’s interesting to listen to what the resulting reflex velocity of the star "sounds" like when the radial velocity waveform is converted into an audio file (more details here).

    It’s also fascinating to watch animations of planets in the different varieties of one-to-one resonance. For example, see this 1MB animation by my student Greg Novak, which shows 400 years of evolution of two Jupiter-mass planets trying to share orbits with the same average period.

    Reply
  11. benjiman Avatar
    benjiman

    Ah, how I love the serpents! Legs are a totally overrated form of locomotion. I had a beloved cornsnake when I was a kid, Madame Dubonnet. Don’t ask me why I named her after an aperitif.

    Reply
  12. kainet Avatar
    kainet

    wow great capture!

    Reply
  13. Fibra Avatar
    Fibra

    You have so meny great photos man!

    Reply
  14. Eddi van W. Avatar
    Eddi van W.

    Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Creative Commons- Free Pictures, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

    Reply
  15. enormous knife Avatar
    enormous knife

    we have one that same size; a juvenile living underneath the shed. sometimes i’ll see him inside the shed looking for mice!

    Reply
  16. benjiman Avatar
    benjiman

    Make sure he reads Flatland!

    Reply
  17. pareeerica Avatar
    pareeerica

    Thank you for choosing creative commons, I have used here 🙂

    * Medusa *

    Reply
  18. Home of Solar Energy Avatar
    Home of Solar Energy

    Hey Steve,

    again a very nice photo…

    I took the liberty to use it here:
    Solar Pool Rings – Alternative Solar Pool Cover and Homemade Solar Pool Heater?

    Thanks

    Daniel

    Reply

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