Biological monitoring crews advised me today that on the Conservancy’s Kismat tract, one of the traps set there (in order to conduct regular biological monitoring) produced two females and a male giant garter snake. All three in one trap! This is amazing.
Biological monitoring crews advised me today that on the Conservancy’s Kismat tract, one of the traps set there (in order to conduct regular biological monitoring) produced two females and a male giant garter snake. All three in one trap! This is amazing. I expected them to say that the snakes were small, but was informed that one of the females was well over a meter long. We’ve been confident that this managed marsh structure would be successful. We just never would have expected we’d ever find multiple giant garter snakes in one day on a site, let alone in one trap!
An unrelated note: I saw today, for the first time in the Conservancy’s North Basin Reserve Area, a yellow-headed blackbird. In this case, it was a male, resting in some tule on the Lucich South preserve. I am always surprised when I see this bird, just because that yellow color is the “screaming yellow zonker” type. The other place to see this species is in the tule thickets on the Conservancy’s BKS preserve. But only if the white-faced ibis and black-crown night herons aren’t bunched up there.
