Black Racer/Blue Grosbeak (Nest Predation Video)

One of many nest predation videos from the field season. Unfortunately, the quality is poor, but you can still see the black racer catch one of the nestlings in midair. When nestlings are as big as they are in this video it's rare that a snake will be able to catch more than one, if any. 

Corn Snake

Rainbow

These are three snakes that were caught in Ellenton Bay one day. The two that are all black with red bellies are black swamp snakes. One individual was very big as far as black swamp snakes go, its full length measuring out to 482 mm, the largest that I have seen yet. Even though it was huge for its species was still tiny compared to adults of most other snake species. It was also the oldest recapture we have seen so far, originally having been marked in 2005. 

The other snake in this image with the long red stripes is juvenile rainbow snake. Rainbow snakes are extremely rare at this site. The reason for this is assumed to be because of their eating habits. As far as we know, rainbow snakes only eat eels and because of its frequent dry spells, Ellenton Bay definitely does not have eels in it. Most snakes of this species found in the bay are thought to be in the process of migrating to other permanent water sources. 

The rainbow snake is the one at the bottom of the image with black spots on its belly.

This rat snake's eyes are blue because it's in the process of shedding its ocular scale. When this happens, snakes temporarily go blind. Because of this, when snakes need to shed, they usually find somewhere safe to do it like this hole in a tree. 

Ugly little blue grosbeak nestlings.

Since the field season is coming to a close, we have started doing the veg work needed for this study. Here are two nests we found while doing veg work that had fallen from their trees:

Blue grosbeak nest. These birds love to use trash in their nests. Some seem to have more trash in them than anything else.

Orchard oriole nest made entirely of one type of grass.

Widow

Chuck Will's Widow

Cranberry Stuffing

A few weeks ago I found this rat snake after it had just scavenged an egg from an abandoned turkey nest. Somehow the snake ended up with the name Cranberry Stuffing.

This is where I found her on the first day of tracking her. There are at least two, if not more, snakes in there.

BLGR

This is a blue grosbeak nest with nestlings that we had a camera on. Often the nests that we find in long leaf pines are very well hidden by the needles, but this one was out in the open and destined for destruction. The day after this video was taken this nest was depredated by a bird of prey (most likely). Unfortunately the camera malfunctioned and we were unable to get the event on film. We presume the predator was a raptor of some sort because the nest was torn apart as nests usually are when they are hit by a bird of prey. However, we can never really be sure about the predator species when we don't have video. Raccoons are also known to tear nests apart. So far we have successfully filmed over 65 nests this year. It appears that the majority of the nest predators in this area are snakes! 

This video doesn't quite do it justice, but there were well over a hundred turkey and black vultures on site when the wild hogs were being trapped and killed. 

Close Call

I almost stepped on this canebrake rattlesnake today.

Closer up:

I haven't been able to use my SLR much since it's too heavy to carry in the field. Here are some SLR pics of a mud snake we brought home from the bay. They're pretty rare for the bay we work at, so we were very excited to find one in our aquatic traps!

Leviathan

Vulture Eggs:

Dillo

We got pig problems

        

Feral pigs are all over our site. They are a huge problem because they dig up the dirt and basically destroy anything in their path. In an attempt to keep their numbers down, traps have been set up to capture and then kill them. It's pretty sad, but definitely needs to be done.

                       

Pig damage like this is everywhere.

I was tracking one of our snakes today and flushed up a black vulture from this area. Since there was no dead animal, I thought there might be a nest in the area. I searched all around and didn't find anything until I was about to leave and looked into the hollow base of this tree and found two huge eggs deep inside.

Ant architecture

Rainy Week

There are a couple of these abandoned cooling tanks throughout our site. Now, the only thing they are used for is trying to find the signals of missing snakes.

Our first Northern Parula nest!

This is where I found our most recent rat snake, Cersei.

I woke up early yesterday and joined the other crew for some mist netting in this clear cut. The birds love this habitat, but the success rate is extremely low in these areas.

This female indigo bunting was our only catch while I was there.

Something's different about that one...

Albino turkey! I see it just about every day on site, but this is the first half-decent photo I have been able to get of it.

Scooter

I have been seeing a lot of babies lately. Mostly baby snakes and birds, but this is the most recent: a coyote!