Sneaky Snake Mating Melee!

It’s in the seventies today, and although it’s plenty windy, it’s feeling a lot like spring. Our daffodils are blooming profusely, and the forsythia’s starting to flower, too.

And, of course, another sign of spring in our yard is the emergence of hibernating garter snakes! (For the record, Thamnophis sirtalis.) Thursday (March 1) was a banner day for us in this respect, since we saw, for the first time, with our own eyes, a garter snake “mating ball.”




We’d read about it but, well, words don’t do it justice!

But here’s a picture Sue took. They were right outside our front steps, in a sunny spot on our front walk, in early afternoon.

The phrase “mating ball” doesn’t describe what we saw very well. I’d call it a “writhing snarl of snakes” or a “serpent tangle” or something. I’m pretty sure there were about a dozen in this group. We watched as two snakes arrived and joined the fray.

They looked like they were having fun!

There’s not much reason for me to tell you what you can find online, but for what it’s worth, here are some selections from the “garter snake” entry in Wikipedia.

Behavior

Garter snakes have complex systems of pheromonal communication. They can find other snakes by following their pheromone-scented trails. Male and female skin pheromones are so different as to be immediately distinguishable. However, sometimes male garter snakes produce both male and female pheromones. During mating season, this fact fools other males into attempting to mate with these "she-males". This causes the transfer of heat to them in kleptothermy which is an advantage immediately after hibernation so allowing them to be more active. She-males have been shown to garner more copulations than normal males in the mating balls that form at the den when females emerge into the mating melee.

Reproduction

Garter snakes go into brumation before they mate. They stop eating for about two weeks beforehand to clear their stomach of any food that would rot there otherwise. Garter snakes begin mating as soon as they emerge from brumation. During mating season, the males mate with several females. In chillier parts of their range, male common garter snakes awaken from brumation first, giving themselves enough time to prepare to mate with females when they finally appear. Males come out of their dens and, as soon as the females begin coming out, surround them. Female garter snakes produce a sex-specific pheromone that attracts male snakes in droves, sometimes leading to intense male-male competition and the formation of mating balls of up to 25 males per female. After copulation, a female leaves the den/mating area to find food and a place to give birth. Female garter snakes are able to store the male's sperm for years before fertilization. The young are incubated in the lower abdomen, at about the midpoint of the length of the mother's body. Garter snakes are ovoviviparous, meaning they give birth to live young. However, this is different than being truly viviparous, which is seen in mammals. Gestation is two to three months in most species. As few as 3 or as many as 80 snakes are born in a single litter. The young are independent upon birth. On record, the greatest number of garter snakes to be born in a single litter is 98.

Inconstant Spring

Inconstant everything, it seems. Yesterday was the first day of spring, and after a whole week of decent, warm, sunny weather, winter gave us a parting bite.

Fortunately, here in Jeff City we missed having any accumulation of snow, although towns not too far away got a couple of inches. No, we only got dreary, cold rain, and in midafternoon it changed to sleet—sloppy, wet ice pellets thrashing down from above. The ground was too warm for it to collect.

As the sleet fell, we were driving around town getting some items at Lowe’s and K-mart. Cat litter, some batteries, more contact lens cleaner, and things even more boring than that, plus a little flat of pansies for the front planters. (Remember, tomorrow is Edna Day!)

The sleet collected in the corners of the windshield, making fogged-up patches on the inside. With it coming down like that, it turned our routine shopping into more of a chore. Especially the parts where we hurried to stuff our new acquisitions into the car.

I am however grateful for the brief ferocity of the sleet, which continued during the only time I was outside, because I didn’t want to be tempted to look too closely at my recent accomplishment: the cleaned-out flower bed in the terrace over our retaining wall.




That was one of my big yardwork achievement this week. I might have put it off a few days longer, but news from our accountant late Monday morning made me so agitated I couldn’t sit staring at a computer anymore, so in three hours that afternoon I cleared out the dried-up biomass from this entire garden. And that is a chore.




But when I was done, I felt very satisfied. The mental agitation had served me well, because the whole thing had gotten done in record time. And the difference in the garden is astonishing, visually. I didn’t take any “before” pictures, but last summer this whole area had been covered with grasses and coneflowers, peonies, irises, columbines, daylilies, and much more.




And it’s always a race in February and early March to get this bed cleared out before the daffodils, bloodroots, and others get too high and fragile. So this year, I did pretty good.




It is nice to see all the shoots coming up, the red peony buds, the little green triangles of new iris leaves, the little tufts of star-of-Bethlehem, and the paradoxically pinkish-green new growth of the columbines.




And of course with it opened up again, it is easy to see the garter snakes who live in this area. As with other parts of our yard, they love to sunbathe and hunt for bugs on this terrace. I think at least a few of them overwintered in burrows under the rocks in this bed. I’ve been enjoying them as they emerge from hibernation.

All week now, since I cleared out the bed, I’ve been attracted to it. Whenever I go outside for something, even just getting in and out of the car, I walk over to the wall and peer around, enjoying the view of new growth, and looking for those cute snakes. And I usually see one or two.




There’s been one, in particular, that’s remarkable. It’s a smaller garter snake, and the first time I saw him (it could be a “her”; I don’t know), he was in a loose curl under a rock ledge. He was slow. I poked him gently and he suddenly writhed, opened his pink mouth wide, and waved his gaping head all around, like a blind snake vowing to strike everywhere at once.

Maybe he was cold, or maybe in need of shedding. I don’t know. But I let him be. I’ve seen him a few times since then. The garter snakes are so tame in early spring, when they’re getting used to the new year, at the borderline of “just warm enough to be active,” and it seems like they haven’t had their coffee yet. I took some pictures of the little guy.




But Friday afternoon, I discovered him in the street. Unmarked, apparently uninjured, but dead. It’s a mystery. Did a snake-phobic, ignorant, hateful passerby spy him and fling him hard onto the pavement? Or did he get himself out into the street, then get injured just bad enough to do him in? Did a neighbor cat get him?

I was saddened, whatever happened. I picked him up and positioned him back next to the rocks that were his home and refuge. I am hoping that, well, an opossum or some other critter will happen by in the night and decide that a freshly deceased garter snake is good eatin’.

But I didn’t look out there today, because it would have made me sadder if I’d seen him exposed there by the rock, so still, even for a snake, a wet black ribbon, staring at the rainclouds, collecting sleet in the folds of his body.

How quickly everything can change, from hibernation to life to death, and from winter to spring to winter . . . to soon it will be spring again.

I Hope This Isn’t Too Repetitive

This might remind you of my post of March 19, 2009; it’s all about springtime in our yard. But I’m suspecting that you are like me, and that each time spring comes, you’re like, “Wey-hey!”

With me, it doesn’t matter if it’s the same ol’ stuff again and again. Spring is always so very welcome when it gets here.




Same ol’ crocuses. Do they bore you? I’ll bet not. These are our first to bloom, and they just started blooming today. Today!




Also, today was the first day we noticed the cute little wildflower (foreign-exotic weed) called bird’s eye, a.k.a. Veronica persica.




Here’s something substantial for you, beyond the purty pictures: This species—indeed its entire genus—has recently been placed in a new family of plants. If you have an older plant guidebook, it will probably list genus Veronica as being a member of the “figwort family,” the Scrophulariaceae, alongside snapdragons, mulleins, beardtongues, broomrapes, and plantains. (Repeat after me: Skroff-you-larry-ay-cee-ee.)

Every botany student had to study the Scrophulariaceae early on, because it was so big. It was right up there with the mustard family, or the roses, the mints, the beans, the mallows . . . you get the picture.

But plant taxonomists studying the family’s DNA sequences have completely dismembered the former Scrophulariaceae. They did violence to it. They blew it up. They drove it off the edge of a cliff. That family used to include about 275 genera, but now it probably holds less than a hundred. Why? Because the former scrophs really weren’t all that closely related; they represented several distinct lineages, each deserving of their own family.

Veronica, therefore, is now grouped with the plantains in the Plantaginaceae. Some botanists call this new family the Veronicaceae, but it looks like Plantaginaceae is the name that will stick. (For now, anyway. Those taxonomists are still at work.)

. . . There, wasn’t that cool information?

The Most Exciting Sign of Spring So Far

Even more interesting than the sight of squirrels copulating this week on our back fence (our “privacy” fence, though the squirrels turned it into a “public display of affection fence”), this is the most exciting sign of spring so far.

Just as the flowers emerge from the earth on these warm days, so do the garter snakes. We have one batch (what do you call garter snakes collectively? a tangle? a slither?) whose burrow is on our front, south-facing terrace.

It’s a lovely, sunny location for them, and there they were today. Some were snuggled together. (No, I don’t think they were mating, though they do mate, often in a slithery, mass orgy, soon after emerging from their dens. But I have yet to see that.) All five were within a square yard of each other.




I mean, here I just stepped outside to take pictures of the flowers for you, and there were five of these cute little fellas sunning in the grass, gazing mildly up at me.

I think I told you before that this time of year they seem really mellow, even gullible. Maybe they’re still groggy from their long winter’s sleep. Maybe it’s so cool their metabolisms and responses are slow. Maybe they’re weak from hunger. (We did notice some box elder bugs stirring around today, too. I bet the garter snakes love them!)

One of the snakey-snakes had some dried-up dirt stuck to his punkin’ head. It was the largest of the five. I wonder if it was the one that poked its head out of the ground, first. (They would have to dig their way out of their burrow with their heads, right? What else are they gonna use?)




Anyway, just like last spring, I could crouch down slowly, gently extend a pointed finger, and touch them. It’s fun to play “snake-charmer” with them. And you have to admit, they’re pretty cute, in a lot of ways.




Yes, they’re completely harmless, except that if you pick them up, they’ll get scared and might smear some icky-smelling juice on you from their nether parts.

I was able to get the camera just a few inches away from the little fellas. They seemed very curious about me.




Ours are the red-sided subspecies of the eastern garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis—or at least represent an intergrade between the two subspecies. See the zippy orange-red they have on their sides?




So that was the thrill of the day. We also spent much of the afternoon clearing out flower beds of last year’s dead foliage, and applying a fresh layer of mulch. But somehow I didn’t think that would make a very interesting blog post!

Thamnophis sirtalis

I just read that garter snakes are ovoviviparious: Instead of laying a nest of eggs, they give birth to live young. (Ooh, slither, slither.)

So it's clear now that ovoviviparousness (ovoviviparity?) has occurred in our yard, because in addition to our usual lovely adult eastern garter snakes (remember that picture from back in March?), we have a number of little guys scooting around.

They are incredibly cute.

I caught one the other day and took some pictures for you.

I mean, look for yourself. Aren't they just as cute as the dickens?

More Proof of Spring

Slow news day. Or at any rate, I’m going to skip the news and cut right to the flower pictures.

The grass is getting green, and the flowers are coming out. The sun rises earlier every day. Here are some recent pictures from our yard. No great photography; just snapshots of what springtime looks like today.

Below, in order: A couple of daffodils; vinca flowers; a portion of the forsythia bush on the corner of the house; a confederate violet; a flowering quince flower.

Here is something else—the garter snakes are out! We love them; they are our little friends. When they see us coming, they hide in the vinca and other groundcovers and bushy places in the yard. We feel blessed to have them in our yard. To us, they are just like more flowers.

When it gets warmer, they will respond to our presence more quickly, and we won’t see them as often. But these days, when the mornings are still chilly, they are quite approachable.

And I suspect they are hungry, too. I’ve noticed the boxelder bugs decreasing since the snakes have been awake. (I’ll bet boxelder bugs taste sweet, like maple sugar. If I try any, I’ll let you know.)

But here’s the fun part: I’ve discovered that I can play with the snakes. Today at lunch, for instance, there were five of them on the front terrace, near the entrance to their tunnel, all slithered together, like a litter of kittens trying to warm up in the sun. I approached very slowly and smoothly. Their heads rose and craned in curiosity. The tongues came out.

Bending down slowly, I discovered that if I dragged one of my fleshy pink fingers away from them through the grass, like a bug or a pinky mouse trying to wiggle away, they could not resist following. They tapped at my finger with their soft tongues.

Voici, voilà-la-la-lahh . . . I’m a snake charmer now.

(Snake charmer: I’ll have to add that to my résumé. It’s no doubt an invaluable skill.)