Slitherin'

   Shirley and I are approached surprisingly often by fellow RVers, campers, and tourists who are curious about what we are watching. "Are you looking at that big brown thing?" asked a woman in Yellowstone. The "big brown thing" was a bull elk. The thing is, in the national parks especially, you can attract quite a crowd just standing around, gazing into the distance or up into a tree. Nobody wants to miss anything so they assume you must have spotted a wild Jabberwock with jaws that bite and claws that snatch. Or maybe it is a frumious Bandersnatch or the nest of the Jubjub bird.

   If we just happen to be looking towards a bird, someone is bound to approach like the fellow who wanted to know if we were bird watchers. "What's that big, black bird that looks like a vulture?" 

   "Well," I said, "we call that a black vulture." Then I went on to explain, in my usual pedantic way, that the black vulture is not to be confused with the turkey vulture that has a red head. Then I went still further on to deny that we were bird watchers. The term implies a level of seriousness and devotion to arcane information that simply doesn't apply to us. We are bird watchers to the extent that we are elk watchers or bear watchers or [fill in the name of any wildlife here] watchers. We do own quite a collection of field guides because we want to know what it is we are looking at. We pity the fools who can't tell an elk from a mule deer or a mountain goat from a bighorn sheep.

   On those very rare occasions when someone asks to see my photos, they are usually interested in the scenery or wildlife such as bison, elk, or moose with their calves. Nobody ever says, "Hey, got any great pictures of reptiles?"

   Reptiles of all kinds tend to make people nervous. Sometimes they are afraid of being bitten. (I never am because I have a woman who hikes ahead of me to kick the rattlesnakes off the trail.) There must be something Freudian about fear of reptiles because even harmless little garter snakes, anoles and geckos get people worked up. Unless, of course, the gecko is the mascot of an insurance company. 

   My opinion is that some reptiles can be attractive in their own right. See the photos below. Unless even photos of reptiles tend to creep you out.

Venomous snakes, like this cottonmouth water moccasin, tend to have triangular shaped heads.

The harmless garter snake, in comparison, has a spoon-shaped rounded head.

At Montpelier, home of President James Madison, I stepped under a large oak to get a photo of the mansion. "LeMoyne," said Shirley, "you're standing on a snake!"  Although it was five feet long, it was just a harmless black racer. He was a little miffed, though. You could see it in his eyes.

This is his cousin we met in Florida.

Also in Florida was this banded water snake.

The bulge in this rattlesnake indicates a recent meal.

Look very contented, doesn't he?

And I thought this was just another banded water snake until he came ashore.

I don't know much about lizards but the collard lizard is easy to identify.

A non-venomous snake, like this bull or gopher snake, may have coloration that make it look like a rattlesnake. It's better to be sure of the identification before approaching too close. 

You can see how much this resembles a diamondback.

This one crawled back into the rocks about two feet from the

entrance to our camping neighbors' RV. Though it is harmless,

it could be a little upsetting to step out and step right on him. 

The gopher snake pursued a packrat into its den but the rat popped out the back door.

The dewlap is a colorful inflatable extension of the throat on the green anole. It is used to communicate--as in, "Hey, this is my territory!"

The ranger said we could tell for sure if this was a cottonmouth water moccasin by the vertical, elliptical pupil in its eye. Non-venous water snakes, like those in Lake Erie, have a round pupil. Who wants to get close enough to see the pupil in its eye? 

That's what a zoom lens is for.