Here’s a video that combines some footage I shot in July with some from last Sunday. Our new caretaker Troy Scott can be heard in both parts, joined by his son Andy in the second part. It was Troy who spotted the snake each time, though I’ve seen it in previous years; it seems to be regular summer visitor. When Dad and I replaced the guest house bathroom 10 years ago, we found lots of snakes: milk snakes, a few garter snakes, and one big black snake in the ceiling — possibly this very individual.
Garter snake mating
I filmed first a pair of mating garter snakes, then (beginning at the 3:00 minute mark) a ball of somewhere around ten snakes, in late morning, April 2.
We’ve always had a healthy garter snake population on the farm, but since we stopped mowing most of the lawns some 15 years ago, their numbers have increased dramatically, we think because a recovering wet meadow environment is better habitat for them than the drier lawn that preceded it. Major gathering points for the emerging snakes in early April include the environs of the old springhouse and a stone decorative well at the base of the slope beneath the main house. Underground hibernacula are presumably located in both spots.
Garter snakes are famous for their mating balls, which we’ve observed at both locations. I shot this scene below the well. The female is identifiable as the largest snake at the center. The Wikipedia article on garter snakes describes what’s going on as well as any source:
Garter snakes begin mating as soon as they emerge from brumation. During mating season, the males mate with several females. In chillier parts of their range, male common garter snakes awaken from brumation first, giving themselves enough time to prepare to mate with females when they finally appear. Males come out of their dens and, as soon as the females begin coming out, surround them. Female garter snakes produce a sex-specific pheromone that attracts male snakes in droves, sometimes leading to intense male-male competition and the formation of mating balls of up to 100 males per female. After copulation, a female leaves the den/mating area to find food and a place to give birth. Female garter snakes are able to store the male’s sperm for years before fertilization. The young are incubated in the lower abdomen, at about the midpoint of the length of the mother’s body. Garter snakes are ovoviviparous, meaning they give birth to live young. Gestation is two to three months in most species. As few as 3 or as many as 50 snakes are born in a single litter. The babies are independent upon birth.
Sled run
Video link.
The record cold (-5F on Saturday morning*) has keep the snow in excellent condition for sledding. I propped a camcorder on my knee for a fast tour of the upper half of the hollow; as I say at the end of the video, I wasn’t willing to go all the way down to the bottom that way. It gets too steep and fast, and I’m afraid for my expensive new camcorder.
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*A couple of friends report temperatures of -16 or -17F at the base of the mountain.
Return of the Giant Swallowtail
Last August, the butterfly bush in my front garden attracted the first-ever giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) to Plummer’s Hollow. Two days ago I spotted our second — a little earlier in the month and in much better condition — at the very same bush. It stayed for less than five minutes. I slowed the video to half speed; this was a very fast-moving creature, which perhaps explains how it manages to disperse so far from its larval habitat of citrus trees.
–Dave
Cicada courtship in full swing
Video link
The cicada chorus starts around 6:00 in the morning now, and goes until late afternoon, letting up only in the case of rain. Sunnier areas such as forest openings and edges are definitely more attractive to the courting cicadas.
Further online research has revealed that Brood XIV, like most other 17-year cicada broods, includes three different species, of which we have at least two. In the above video, which I shot this morning at the Far Field and the top of First Field, the first-featured species is Magicicada cassini — the one with the more metallic call. My camera unfortunately wasn’t really up to the task of capturing them in flight; they were extremely active in the small locust trees. A box turtle behind the spruce grove at the top of First Field seemed slightly freaked out, but that’s probably my own projection. In reality, she was probably thinking slow turtle thoughts about where to find her next meal.
The final portion of the video shows Magicicada septendecim, which makes the weirder and more musical of the two calls we’ve been hearing. I was surprised by the low volume of its call at close range, but probably it was just getting warmed up. Notice how the abdomen moves as it “sings.” Here’s a description of what’s involved from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Periodical Cicada Page, the source of most of my information in this post:
As in nearly all cicada species, male periodical cicadas produce “songs” using a pair of tymbals, or ridged membranes, found on the first abdominal segment. The abdomen of a male cicada is hollow and may act as a resonating chamber; the songs of individuals are loud, and large choruses can be virtually deafening. Females of most cicada species do not have sound-producing organs. Both sexes hear the sounds of the males as well as other sounds using membranous hearing organs called “tympana” found on the underside of the abdomen.
Over the course of an emergence, males congregate in “choruses” or singing aggregations, usually in high, sunlit branches. Females visit these aggregations and mate there, so choruses contain large numbers of both sexes.
As a follow-up to the previous post, my mother emailed a cicada expert at the University of Connecticut named Dave Marshall for more information about the mud turrets she collected. He replied,
No one knows for sure why the cicadas build the turrets when they do. Most of the time they do not, and yet sometimes a whole area will have them built way up several inches. Theories ranges from differences in soil moisture/recent rainfall (nymphs somehow reducing the risk of drowning) to artifacts of differential exposure to light. People were writing about this 100 years ago in USDA pubs, and we have hardly learned any more since then!
—Dave
Encounter with a porcupine
I surprised a porcupine on the ground up in the spruce grove this morning. It was walking along making little grunting noises when I interrrupted. Uncharacteristically, after showing me its backside, it then turned to face me and approached to with two feet of me, clicking its teeth. As it waddled away, it resumed grunting — this is faintly audible in the video.
–Dave
Plummer's Hollow, Pennsylvania 