Of Thirsty Snakes And Ducks With Dry Bills

Baby quenches her thirst (one), Baby the Bullsnake drinks her fill of water on a warm spring morning, April 2009, photo © 2009 by Jim. All rights reserved.

The other morning Baby the Bullsnake was lying in her empty water dish, breathing hard as if she were panting. (Do snakes pant?) I’d gone into the potting shed to water the geraniums, and as much as I wanted to open her cage and relieve her thirst, I was afraid she’d moved suddenly and send me fleeing from the shed, screaming. So I did what any sane person would do; I called Jim.

Psst…have you ever seen a snake drink?

A snake walks into into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender tells the snake he can’t serve it. “Why not?” asks the snake. “Because you can’t hold your liquor.”

Jim poured the water into her dish while Baby was in it. I expected her to jerk forward and come slithering out. But she lay there, letting the water swirl all around. She got to the task of drinking right away, floating in the water like an alligator, eyes and nostrils above the surface, mouth below. Then she appeared to inhale deeply, breathing the water in as if parched.

  

Speaking of water, Jim irrigated earlier in the week and ever since a hundred or so Mallard ducks have been frollicking in the field. They really do look like those shooting range carnival games where the little duck swims back and forth, back and forth. These Mallards swim along the channeled grooves dug into the field for the purpose of irrigation.

They’re fun to watch. They dip their heads underwater and shake vigorously. Jim says they’re pulling up the grass to eat. That’s why property owners chase them away, he tells me. I ask him why he doesn’t mind having them. Because they’re part of nature, he says.

A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks for Chapstick. The cashier says, “Cash or credit card.” “Just put it on my bill,” the duck replies.

Ducks in the field (one), pairs of Mallard ducks frollicking in the field after irrigation day, April 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

Ducks in the field (two), you can just make out Mike and Mallary Malloy to the left of the Ortegas, April 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

-related to posts Baby Wakes From Her Nap, Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?, snake awake haiku, and sticks for legs and arms.

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Baby Wakes From Her Nap

Basking Baby, Baby the Bullsnake wakes up from winter hibernation on a warm, sunny March morning, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

Guess who woke up?

Baby the Bullsnake emerged from her winter coil and slithered in all her elongated glory around the cage this past Thursday morning. Jim called me out to look, and as soon as I got near she glided in my direction and madly flicked her tongue about.

Did she wake up hungry?

It was a perfect day for coming out of deep slumber. The sun was strong and her space warm. Since keeping about a dozen geraniums and other annuals in the room, her potting shed house has a loamy smell and feel.

                  

                                     

                                                         





Bullsnakes are one of the largest snakes in the U.S. They are non-venomous, but since they tend to look like rattlesnakes (both have yellow scales with brown markings) and coil and shake their tails when provoked, people sometimes mistakenly slaughter the bullsnake.

But the truth is, the bullsnake is beneficial to the environment, and especially to farmers. Because of their size—they can grow up to almost six feet—the bullsnake eats fairly large mammals, such as rats and the destructive gopher. (In fact, bullsnakes are a sub-species of the larger gopher snake species.)

Bullsnakes get their name from the fact that they sometimes make a loud snorting noise, like a hiss but with deep breathing put into it. (When Baby does this she reminds me of those accordian-like contraptions used to stoke a fire. Her whole body contracts and expands, contracts and expands, as if she’s hyperventilating.)

Bullsnakes come out of hibernation when temperatures rise in spring. It’s important their homes have both shady areas and sunny so they can move to the shade in the hottest parts of the day and into the sun when it’s cool. (Snakes are attracted to heat, including that warmth that tends to accumulate on a road black-top, which is why we often see snakes run over by cars.)

Baby will soon be getting her first meal of the season—a live rat from the pet store. I imagine she’ll be hungry. She’ll squeeze the rat with her body and then swallow it whole, head first. She won’t chew it, but rather it will move through her body and be digested over a matter of days. And, as it expands her body, her skin will likely start shedding. And Jim or one of the girls will call me to come look as the old skin gets left behind and leaves behind a shiny brilliant new layer.

Thus begins another year of living with and being fascinated by our most unique pet. Welcome to wakefulness, Baby!



           

Resources

• Reptiles and Amphibians of Minnesota (QM, you need to keep an eye out for bullsnakes in your part of the world)
• Bullsnakes Are Beneficial Environmentalists!
• New Mexico Snakes — recognizing the poisonous ones and controlling them around homes
• Frank Thayer — Reptiles
• Snake Shedding 101

-Related to posts Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?, snake awake haiku, and Meet Baby!

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Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?

      

   

   



Baby was up and at it the other day. She almost seemed to be posing for me. She’d eaten a rat a few days earlier, and the sluggishness from winter had all but worn off.

Do you ever look at your animals and wonder what’s going on inside their heads? I do, especially with our dogs. Usually I think they’re either blissed-out happy or totally miserable. It’s almost always the former, but every so often, like when they’re covered in mud or have just rolled in something disgusting and it’s damp outside and I won’t let them in — then they’re miserable.

But with a snake, it’s not the same. You don’t look at a snake and say to it in a squeaky voice, “Hi, little Baby, are you happy I gave you that rat?” Most of the times I look at her, I wonder if she’s awake. Sometimes I even touch her skin to make sure she’s alive. On a very rare occasion, she hisses at me. She shakes her tail violently as if she were a rattlesnake, which, apparently, is one of the ways bullsnakes protect themselves.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t normally anthropomorphize my snake. Remember the turkeys and the post I did where I imagined what they were thinking as they stared at us through the windows? Later I pretended they were The Amazing Turkeys Wallenda, and another time I put words to what they were thinking as they greeted me coming up the drive. I loved making fun of them.

But our pet bullsnake is the one animal I’ve taken at face value. That is, until today.

Today I looked at the photos I took of Baby on that day she was so active, and there it was, calling out to me. Not all of them, but one here, another there:

     Can ya scratch my chin, right there, under my right fang.

     Are you my mom????

     Peekaboo. I see you.


I don’t want to go there. Baby has dignity. Not that turkeys don’t, but Baby’s a special case. She defies being made into a goofball.

I’m not sure what to do about it. The silly side of me wants to break loose. Ah, what will Baby care? She’s a snake. She has no feelings.

The other side, though, stares into those steely eyes and realizes that I’m the only one who will look the fool if I dare try to penetrate her inner snake.

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snake awake haiku

Baby Bath, Baby the Bullsnake taking a bath the first day she comes out of hibernation, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.






coiled in water
baby awakens with flair
winter has ended

-related to posts: haiku (one-a-day), Meet Baby!

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Meet Baby!

Ever notice how some animals have a good energy about them, others not so good?

Dogs = good.
Snakes = bad.

The other day, our Evangelical Christian neighbors were out walking their dogs.

“Do you ever find any ssserpentsss in your field?” the woman asked.

The way Jim tells it, she hissed the word serpents. “As if she couldn’t stand the thought of snakes,” he says, and then he wiggles his shoulders in mock shudder.

Snakes can be scary. Especially poisonous snakes.

But Baby… well, Baby is a baby. Not in terms of her age, just her disposition.

She is, we’re told, old for a bullsnake. Almost 30.

The story goes: the previous owner of the place was driving down a dirt road on Indian land near the Arizona – New Mexico border. A baby snake went slithering across the road; the jeep barely missed it. The guy jumped out, caught the snake, and brought it home in a coffee can.

He built a six-foot-long, two-level cage in an enclosed potting shed next to the house. One whole wall of the cage is a south-facing window. 

The day we did our walk-through inspection, the guy asked us if we’d like to keep her. We had dogs, chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Why not a snake?

Indeed. Why not a snake?

She’s about eight feet long. Maybe longer. She’s alert, especially when she’s hungry. She’ll come up to where you’re standing and see what you have for her. Or maybe she thinks you’re the food.

Jim feeds her a rat, a big one, every three to four weeks. She usually eats it in a matter of minutes. I can’t watch. Once the rat screamed.

I’m not planning to introduce Baby to our neighbor. Unless, of course, the neighbor comes knocking on our door bearing a Bible. In which case, I might take her out to the potting shed.

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