Yes, who'd have thunk that lowly bullsnakes romance for hours? Should you wonder how I might know that tidbit, let me explain. In tending my gopher traps, I regularly plod up and down our long driveway. During one of my recent forays, it was hard to miss the two 5' long bulls cuddling, as only snakes can, midway between two of my traps and inches from the wheel tracks in which I was treading. Oblivious to all dangers--raptors, vehicles, herpa-phobic humans--they carried on in broad daylight. I don't know when their ritual began, but I first noticed them shortly after 9:00 AM. Not wanting to catch a snake in one of my traps (I did that last year. The snake survived and so did I.), but eager to nail the rodents I had seen dive into holes fore and aft of the writhing pair, I checked the traps more often than usual. At 1:00 PM, the bull pair was still carrying on. At that point, I decided to seek further knowledge. Scholarly articles with factual details were hard to find in my quick Google search, but YouTube's generous smorgasbord of videos provided a wealth of visual affirmation that my observations were commonplace. I tell myself that snake videographers who focus on mating behavior must be an unusual lot. That said, I must confess to taking the camera on my 3:00 PM sojourn. A good thing, too, for the pair was wrapping it up, so to speak. In conclusion, I look forward to discovering a nest of bullsnake eggs in the near future. None of my sources suggested the time frame from mating to egg laying to hatching, but I did learn that the eggs can be up to 4" long, so I'm keeping my eyes open, tending my traps regularly, and hoping to spot eggs before I welcome multitudes of young wrigglers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Margaret zieg ellerFor 25 years, Prairie Island has been my anchor, my core, my muse. The seasonal rhythms of land and livestock sustain me. The power of place inspires me. Archives
November 2024
Categories |