Obstructions

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

Someone forgot to clean the course after the hail hit the cottonwoods
yesterday, which left the normally bare path up the Arkansas River
looking like a feeble wooden imitation of Paris-Roubaix, with branches
and inch-thick chunks of bark hiding amidst the leaves:

http://i14.tinypic.com/4qsre6s.jpg

http://i13.tinypic.com/5yj9w6c.jpg

http://i17.tinypic.com/4l62f5s.jpg

Maybe the fellows who sweep the route of the Tour de France are idle
and willing to work cheap?

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

[snip]

Only a panic-stricken bunny-hop saved today's obstruction.

I wasn't paying enough attention on a cloudy afternoon and mistook it
for a branch or some other debris left on the bike path by a recent
hailstorm.

Cursing the four-foot-long obstruction for lying limp and still across
the bike path in hopes of not being seen, I stopped and went back to
see if I'd managed to avoid killing it.

By the time I got my camera out, it had curled up a bit:

http://i11.tinypic.com/4yi2ssm.jpg

Honest, it was a lot harder to see when I was coming the other way at
about 20 mph.

While I swatted mosquitoes and looked for a branch to pin its head,
the obstruction curled up mo

http://i5.tinypic.com/4z09fcz.jpg

I shooed it off the path, where its camouflage makes more sense:

http://i15.tinypic.com/4vrd340.jpg

Then I pinned it, grabbed it by the neck, and practiced my one-handed
photography, but the obstruction was so long that the coils on my
elbow and upper arm are completely out of the frame:

http://i5.tinypic.com/4xm8eis.jpg

And here's the stupid obstruction, off the path and showing that its
camouflage works fine against a natural background:

http://i9.tinypic.com/61mwqjs.jpg

I wish they'd lie length-wise down the path instead of draping
themselves across it at right angles.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

In article ,
wrote:

Then I pinned it, grabbed it by the neck, and practiced my one-handed
photography, but the obstruction was so long that the coils on my
elbow and upper arm are completely out of the frame:

http://i5.tinypic.com/4xm8eis.jpg


Lotsa questions. Pin it with what? How did you get close enough without
the snake striking to immobilize it? There's no rattle, what kind of
snake is this?

On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 02:22:01 -0400, Luke
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

Then I pinned it, grabbed it by the neck, and practiced my one-handed
photography, but the obstruction was so long that the coils on my
elbow and upper arm are completely out of the frame:

http://i5.tinypic.com/4xm8eis.jpg


Lotsa questions. Pin it with what? How did you get close enough without
the snake striking to immobilize it? There's no rattle, what kind of
snake is this?

Dear Luke,

With a little experience, the snakes around here are fairly easy to
catch. This one is a harmless bullsnake, a common sight east of the
Rockies, often mistaken for a rattler.

I pinned this one with the branch that I mentioned looking for, about
two feet long. Like most snakes, bullsnakes don't strike at a branch.
They're not terribly bright, but they're smart enough not to attack
wooden sticks.

You prod and push, the bullsnake tends to curve around the stick, you
press the neck gently against the ground, and then you grab the snake,
just behind the stick.

The larger the snake, the easier you can grab it behind the head.
Small snakes are much trickier. Even a short length of free neck may
let a small snake turn enough to bite you.

I grabbed this bullsnake because it's fun to catch them, because I
hope that it scares them enough to stay the hell off the path, and
because I had to check it to make sure that my careless bunny-hop had
been successful. Fortunately, it was unhurt, so I was able to let it
go instead of putting it out of its misery.

Alas, I've never interrupted a snake in the middle of a meal. A few
days ago, a friend sent me this picture of a garter snake having lunch
with a field mouse:

http://i8.tinypic.com/4m1zaco.jpg

He and his wife happened on the scene while hiking. The bullsnake that
I grabbed today does the same thing with the ground squirrels that run
back and forth across the bike path.

Cheersssss,

Carl Fogel

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

[snip]

This obstruction had the grace to lie in plain sight on a sunny
evening and waited while I stopped, walked back, and took a pictu

http://i9.tinypic.com/4yj6hlg.jpg

It's a good example of just how limp a motionless bullsnake lies when
hoping not to be noticed.

I put the camera down and grabbed the bullsnake by the tail, which it
vibrated in imitation of a rattlesnake, but I had a fearful time
avoiding its outraged attempts to bite me with its gaping jaws because
its head was only about the size of my little finger. Small snakes are
harder to grab.

Eventually I won, practiced my one-handed photography, and let it
slither off into the weeds, hopefully never to bask on the bike path
again.

Regrettably, my one-handed photography skills need work, since I cut
the head off the bullsnake in both pictures:

http://i17.tinypic.com/6g1p828.jpg

http://i19.tinypic.com/5zmktiw.jpg

A magpie was probably what tried to cut the head off this poor devil,
posing next to an 18-inch ruler:

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

It was a full-grown two-foot smooth green snake, somewhat rare in
Colorado. I saw it lying in the gutter close enough to home that I
went back and picked it up while walking my dog.

In my neighborhood, uneaten snakes with neck wounds like this are
usually the work of the magpies that are slowly returning after West
Nile virus wiped them out a few years ago. Mapgies are charming birds
in many ways, but they kill any snake near their nests, usually
without bothering to eat their victims, even though the local snakes
neither climb trees nor eat eggs--I've seen magpies kill garter snakes
in my back yard, leave the corpses on the walk, and flap back up to
their nests.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

In article ,
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

A magpie was probably what tried to cut the head off this poor devil,
posing next to an 18-inch ruler:

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

It was a full-grown two-foot smooth green snake, somewhat rare in
Colorado. I saw it lying in the gutter close enough to home that I
went back and picked it up while walking my dog.

Being the kind of nerd I am, I was even more interested in exploring the
rich data contained in the background of that photo:

-Carl likes Vivaldi a lot
-Carl is googling smooth green snakes
-Carl has a notepad from the "Army Reserve Health Care Team"
-Carl uses Internet Explorer, and it looks like version 6 still.
-Carl keeps the phone number for his local sheriff by his computer.

In my neighborhood, uneaten snakes with neck wounds like this are
usually the work of the magpies that are slowly returning after West
Nile virus wiped them out a few years ago. Mapgies are charming birds
in many ways, but they kill any snake near their nests,

I was in Greece recently, and the most common reptile, by far, were some
sort of lizard that ranged in size from about 5 cm to 25 cm, tip to
tail, but often missing the tail.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 05:10:41 GMT, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

A magpie was probably what tried to cut the head off this poor devil,
posing next to an 18-inch ruler:

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

It was a full-grown two-foot smooth green snake, somewhat rare in
Colorado. I saw it lying in the gutter close enough to home that I
went back and picked it up while walking my dog.

Being the kind of nerd I am, I was even more interested in exploring the
rich data contained in the background of that photo:

-Carl likes Vivaldi a lot
-Carl is googling smooth green snakes
-Carl has a notepad from the "Army Reserve Health Care Team"
-Carl uses Internet Explorer, and it looks like version 6 still.
-Carl keeps the phone number for his local sheriff by his computer.

In my neighborhood, uneaten snakes with neck wounds like this are
usually the work of the magpies that are slowly returning after West
Nile virus wiped them out a few years ago. Mapgies are charming birds
in many ways, but they kill any snake near their nests,

I was in Greece recently, and the most common reptile, by far, were some
sort of lizard that ranged in size from about 5 cm to 25 cm, tip to
tail, but often missing the tail.

Dear Ryan,

Dashiell Hammett recalled a somewhat similar case in his memoirs of
his years as a Pinkerton's detective:

"21. The chief of police of a Southern city once gave me a description
of a man, complete even to the mole on his neck, but neglected to
mention that he had only one arm."

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/hammett2.html

Your list might begin with this:

--Carl stretches dead snakes out on his desk

And things can change . . .

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

http://i4.tinypic.com/6g041fm.jpg

Brelew on the left, beaver on the right, other differences left as an
exercise to the reader.

As for the more interesting question of Greek lizards, a size range
and missing tail is not exactly a description brimming with detail,
but . . .

Best guess, Agama stellio, the starred Agama, common in daytime in
Greece, right size, and coloring unremarkable enough to have deserved
no comment.

Here's a fair range of pictures, with some truncated tails:

http://www.club100.net/species/L_stellio/L_stellio.html

Really fast agamas wear numbers in the Tour de Rhodes:

http://www.biol.lu.se/zooekologi/jon/herpbild/hb36.htm

Other suspects tend to be nocturnal or more colorful.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

In article ,
wrote:

On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 05:10:41 GMT, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

A magpie was probably what tried to cut the head off this poor devil,
posing next to an 18-inch ruler:

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

It was a full-grown two-foot smooth green snake, somewhat rare in
Colorado. I saw it lying in the gutter close enough to home that I
went back and picked it up while walking my dog.

Being the kind of nerd I am, I was even more interested in exploring the
rich data contained in the background of that photo:

-Carl likes Vivaldi a lot
-Carl is googling smooth green snakes
-Carl has a notepad from the "Army Reserve Health Care Team"
-Carl uses Internet Explorer, and it looks like version 6 still.
-Carl keeps the phone number for his local sheriff by his computer.

In my neighborhood, uneaten snakes with neck wounds like this are
usually the work of the magpies that are slowly returning after West
Nile virus wiped them out a few years ago. Mapgies are charming birds
in many ways, but they kill any snake near their nests,

I was in Greece recently, and the most common reptile, by far, were some
sort of lizard that ranged in size from about 5 cm to 25 cm, tip to
tail, but often missing the tail.

Dear Ryan,

Dashiell Hammett recalled a somewhat similar case in his memoirs of
his years as a Pinkerton's detective:

"21. The chief of police of a Southern city once gave me a description
of a man, complete even to the mole on his neck, but neglected to
mention that he had only one arm."

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/hammett2.html

Your list might begin with this:

--Carl stretches dead snakes out on his desk

And things can change . . .

http://i3.tinypic.com/5yb74fq.jpg

http://i4.tinypic.com/6g041fm.jpg

I like what you've done with the place! As a person with a French name,
I admire your taste in the cuisine of my homeland.

As for the more interesting question of Greek lizards, a size range
and missing tail is not exactly a description brimming with detail,
but . . .

Best guess, Agama stellio, the starred Agama, common in daytime in
Greece, right size, and coloring unremarkable enough to have deserved
no comment.

Could be. I have a fair number of photos, but they're not up yet.

Here's a fair range of pictures, with some truncated tails:

http://www.club100.net/species/L_stellio/L_stellio.html

Those ones look rather pudgy, but close. I'll check my pictures (on the
other computer...).

Really fast agamas wear numbers in the Tour de Rhodes:

http://www.biol.lu.se/zooekologi/jon/herpbild/hb36.htm

Other suspects tend to be nocturnal or more colorful.

These were very active in daytime and routinely startled as we came
close. It sometimes seemed you couldn't walk 30m without scaring the
living daylights out of a lizard.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:29:34 GMT, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

[snip]

As for the more interesting question of Greek lizards, a size range
and missing tail is not exactly a description brimming with detail,
but . . .

Best guess, Agama stellio, the starred Agama, common in daytime in
Greece, right size, and coloring unremarkable enough to have deserved
no comment.

Could be. I have a fair number of photos, but they're not up yet.

Here's a fair range of pictures, with some truncated tails:

http://www.club100.net/species/L_stellio/L_stellio.html

Those ones look rather pudgy, but close. I'll check my pictures (on the
other computer...).

Really fast agamas wear numbers in the Tour de Rhodes:

http://www.biol.lu.se/zooekologi/jon/herpbild/hb36.htm

Other suspects tend to be nocturnal or more colorful.

These were very active in daytime and routinely startled as we came
close. It sometimes seemed you couldn't walk 30m without scaring the
living daylights out of a lizard.

Dear Ryan,

The pudginess may be an artifact of technology.

Female agamas often protest that the camera adds ten grams.

Desperate ones will even shed their tails to lose weight.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:15:27 -0700, wrote:

[snip]

So at mid-Spetember I noticed a great blue heron standing just inside
the chain link fence at the fish hatchery pond, half-way up the long
grade along the front of the dam at the Pueblo reservoir.

I stopped, fumbled out my camera, turned, and swore because the huge
bird had silently vanished, without even a flapping sound. Apparently,
he didn't like me watching over his shoulder while he decided which
trout hatchlings to eat for dinner.

I spotted him standing in the water at the far end of the hatchery
pond, so I walked across the road, stuck my camera's snout through the
chain link fence, and took a picture of him at the far sho

http://i19.tinypic.com/4oqfs6s.jpg

Then I pedalled off to collect my 34th flat tire of the year.

When I looked at the picture full-size on the screen, it turned out
that the great blue heron had flown off to the other end of the pond
because he had a dinner date waiting for him there, just to his left
in the tall grass.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel