Spring Sightings

[Chulio]

Every year I have the same Garters on my property.
They have been here for a few years and only one is
missing do to a lawn mower accident.

I have seen on National Geagraphic that they stay together
in the winter in limestone formations an come out all together.
All accept the 1st year snakes they said.

How far do they travel from that spot.
I would like to find the spot.
They spend the summers under my front sidewalk and stay on the perimeter
of my house in the mornings then work their way to the wetland behind my property where they eat polywogs and frogs.

Can I get a book on my species.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Misc/DSCF0449.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Misc/DSCF0441.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Misc/DSCF0451.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Misc/DSCF0454.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Misc/Gatorfrog.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Those are some nice, robust looking garters you got there. Obviously, the frogs around there have adapted a defense in response to all those frog-gobbling snakes. LoL.

I'm not very good at garter ID but if I am to take a wild guess, without knowing where you are, I would say T. elegans?

If you're seeing numbers of them, fairly early in the year, then my guess is that you are sitting right on top of, or very near their winter dens. With a source of water and food nearby all summer, there's no need for them to travel far. I too, have seen the same individuals within a 100 square yard area, over and over again, over a period of years. They don't move much.

[guidofatherof5]

Great looking snakes.
It's nice having the same ones return every year. I've got a number of radixes that do that.

[charles parenteau]

The first picture is very good!!nice defense !!

[ConcinusMan]

Anyone else want to confirm or challenge my initial ID on those snakes? (first 2 pics, female, no doubt) I'm dying here. Are they T. elegans or what? C'mon stefan, anyone? I have little confidence in my ID ability. Some feedback would be nice. I'm sure chulio wouldn't mind hearing it too.

[Panzer13]

Nice looking snakes. Thats cool that they stick around from year to year. Have there been any babies yet?

[ssssnakeluvr]

I believe they are easterns. would help to know where he lives

[charles parenteau]

Look like eastern ?Where you live???

[BUSHSNAKE]

Hey Chulio were do you live,i see one snake with neck bars like semifasciatus(Chicago Garter Snake)

[ssssnakeluvr]

I see them too...the one in the back crawling away...so, where do ya live?? :D

[jitami]

In another thread, maybe on another forum, it was decided they were easterns and not chicagos.

[Chulio]

Yes I think they are easterns. I live in Franklin WI.

The thing that is different about these to is how much bigger there are than
the rest of the snakes. Most others the head is smaller than the body.
Maybe these are older as I have seen them for about 5 years.
Here is an offspring that is 2 years old I think

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Garter3-1.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Garter2.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c272/Jimi1956Sellars/Garter1.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Darnit! I'm wrong again!! I still say it wouldn't be too difficult to find a T. elegans that looks just like the original pictures, but yeah, if I knew the location, easterns would would be my second guess.

[Faunaofthenorth]

well if you live in wisconsin then you wouldnt find elegans there, not part of their range, easterns are my guess because in northern minnesota besides a few red sided and plains popping up randomly rarely i have thousands of easterns, i pretty much dwelled in the wilderness with them when i was a kid, i was a man among snakes lol jk but no seriously

[ConcinusMan]

Forgive, but never forget.

Anyway, I hear you about the "man among snakes" comment. Sometimes I feel like snakes rule the earth when I find myself stumbling upon a T. ordinoides den site in the spring. I could swear they are ankle deep and I'm surrounded! They could take me down if they wanted to!

[BUSHSNAKE]

The Chicago Garter Snakes range does go up to Franklin, WI, Im not saying theyre pure Chicagos, but even in Chicago they vary just the same

[Faunaofthenorth]

that one does look a lot like a chicago, althought the patterns of common/eastern garters are so varied that without scale counts you cant be too sure, at least in this case, but i find counting scales rather, well boring, but anyways id rather forgive and forget then remember and hate, you kno, remember and dwell on the negativity if you know what i mean, because itll eat you up, like a snake lol

[BUSHSNAKE]

you dont find Easterns that look like Chicagos,HMMM lets see,anywhere outside the Chicago Garters range

[ConcinusMan]

I don't know about that. I'd have to agree that those easterns look a bit like some chicagos.

[BUSHSNAKE]

I DO know about that!

[Faunaofthenorth]

really now, haha i would have to disagree as ive caughten some easterns up here that had patterns that looked quite similar to that of the chicagos

[Faunaofthenorth]

plus what's the scientific name of the chicago garter snake??? thamnophis SIRTALIS semifasciatus, so there you have it, its very possible to have easterns and commons share similar patterns even from far away states

[ConcinusMan]

I agree.

[Faunaofthenorth]

yes exactly, but i wasnt trying to be rude was just stating that with garters, the impossible becomes the possible haha, at least in my experience

[Faunaofthenorth]

i mean i wasnt trying to be rude to bushsnake

[ConcinusMan]

I DO know about that!

Oh sorry. I think I may have caused you to misunderstand my comment. I didn't mean to offend your intelligence or knowledge but perhaps if you saw more chicago garters and easterns you would see what I'm talking about.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdeboer152/1356772982/

Now compare that snake ^^^


to some easterns: http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/showphoto.php?photo=5947&si=eastern

Still say they are nothing alike?

[BUSHSNAKE]

Ive seen more Chicago Garters than anyone! Your schooling the wrong person when it comes to sirtalis and those pictures, one is clearly Chicago and the other common sirtalis

[Faunaofthenorth]

omg dude, we arent trying to school anyone we are just saying that what you are claiming is not absolute in totality, meaning its not set in stone, i have seen SIMILAR, not exact, SIMILAR garters that have markings SIMILAR to chicagos, they are part of the sirtalis family, you will find similar snakes every once in a while

[Faunaofthenorth]

well, hmm, i dont think bushsnake will ever agree with us concinnusman, oh well it was worth a try, on those two pics they are similar, although the main difference is the dark neck blotches/bands, and i have seen this, although not as many bands, but SIMILAR on a few smaller males that are here in northern minnesota every year, i also see some commons that sometimes look similar to even radix, NOT exactly, but similar

[ConcinusMan]

That's alright. He doesn't have to agree. He's entitled to his opinion. I don't want this to turn into an argument so I'll leave it alone with what I have already stated.

We're off topic anyway. Now if the weather would cooperate, we could get this thread going in the right direction.

[Faunaofthenorth]

i kno, its 57 here and yet still a little snow and cloudy a yucky day and raining

[ConcinusMan]

Not too bad today. It's partly sunny and definitely warming up.

[Faunaofthenorth]

kool thats good

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Oh sorry. I think I may have caused you to misunderstand my comment. I didn't mean to offend your intelligence or knowledge but perhaps if you saw more chicago garters and easterns you would see what I'm talking about.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdeboer152/1356772982/

Now compare that snake ^^^


to some easterns: http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/showphoto.php?photo=5947&si=eastern

Still say they are nothing alike?
last night on the phone Joe pointed this thread out to me... and I just want to point out that Joe lives there and he has seen more chicago garters than any of us could ever will in our entire lives. he also has seen a lot of easterns... easily as many as I have... he focuses only on just those in captivity. I actually have a very nice chicago female that he caught himself. if you really look at those two snakes, they look entirely different, they are nothing alike if you ask me! You just helped point out the differences between the two, even on a low-end chicago garter. Distinguishing chicagos from easterns is an acquired taste... you have to just kind of know what to look for! it's little things that make them different but they are different, even the chicagos that resemble easterns, until you actually sit down and look at them and realize that they don't. they are more than likely an isolated population of easterns that changed enough to become their own snake. when I look at chicagos I also go past the neck bars, everyone seems to concetrate on those heavily. and I can see different facial features and shapes than the easterns have. They have beadier eyes and a more pronounced snout!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

omg dude, we arent trying to school anyone we are just saying that what you are claiming is not absolute in totality, meaning its not set in stone, i have seen SIMILAR, not exact, SIMILAR garters that have markings SIMILAR to chicagos, they are part of the sirtalis family, you will find similar snakes every once in a while
yes, similar! that's the whole point! You can see that they are SIMILAR, they are both brown... they both have lateral stripes, some checkers... but they are not the same and the inexperienced are the ones who get them confused. Much like t.s. sirtalis "florida blue" and t.s.similis. Similis are actually named that because they bear a striking resemblance to the blustriped ribbon snake. But they also bear resemblance to the blue easterns that dwell in that area and I see so many snakes incorrectly labeled as similis it makes my head spin! Once you get to know them you clearly see they are nothing alike, and you wonder how people don't see it, because it's so obvious! But at first, even I had trouble distinguishing the two.

[Chulio]

I noticed the picture of the Chicago said it was western Racine county.
I could throw a rock from my Milwaukee county back yard and it would land in Racine county. My wife of 24 years was killed by a drunk driver in Racine county while riding her bike last year.

I may have seen Chicago Garters in the past though. There is a rock area next to the wetland behind my home and I saw some that look like that.
I will take some pictures when they appear in the near future.

I learned more about Garters in this thread than I knew before, thanks everyone.

[Stefan-A]

Sorry to hear about your wife, Chulio.

[guidofatherof5]

My condolences as well.
You are in our prayers.

[gregmonsta]

Sorry to hear that mate.

[ConcinusMan]

It infuriates me to see someone drink and drive, and I see it often. Sorry man. Welcome to the forum Stick around.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

I noticed the picture of the Chicago said it was western Racine county.
I could throw a rock from my Milwaukee county back yard and it would land in Racine county. My wife of 24 years was killed by a drunk driver in Racine county while riding her bike last year.

I may have seen Chicago Garters in the past though. There is a rock area next to the wetland behind my home and I saw some that look like that.
I will take some pictures when they appear in the near future.

I learned more about Garters in this thread than I knew before, thanks everyone.

that is just horrible. I'm so sorry.

[Chulio]

Thanks everybody.
Today was the the first day of the trial and the person plead guilty to homicide by reckless use of a motor vehicle.
I can relax a little now.

[Jeff B]

Man I am sorry about your wife, I can't even imagine how you feel, as much as I cherish my own wife, my deepest condolences to you.
I just wanted to point out that there is likely a lot of integradation between the two sub-species, especially in more borderline/overlapping areas and considering the eastern basically surrounds if not goes right thru the entire chicago range, so my point is that it may not always black and white or cut and dry to define and classify weather a snake (especially in an area or range such as this) fits into the sirtalis semifasciatus or sirtalis sirlalis, but like Joe has pointed out (if Joe says it looks Chicago, then the local authority has spoken, as he has personally seen and put his hands on more true wild semifasciatus than likely anyone out there) the snake in question certainly does have some barring on the side neck, but I think you would agree Joe that we have seen more clearly pronounced barring that runs farther back (you certainly more than me, only had my hands on two semifasiatus personally), so it's even possible the snake in question is a percentage semifasiatus, and that no one argueing on this post is completely right or wrong. The mere fact that semifasiatis has been historically debated of it's even deserving subspecies status in classification, shows us that defining the subspecies has always been a bit of a dicey topic of discussion at best. This is a daily way of open minded objective thinking for me, NOT taking sides here just pointing out some facts, historical data, and possibilities. Honestly in my oppinion without genome maps with good concensus sequence, with conserved regions that show a genetically significant difference between the two sub-species, clearly defining them, followed by sequencing of those differentiation regions of the snake in question, it's a complete morphology guessing game at best. I hope that this kind of work is being done by a grad. student somewhere out there and will be eventually published and then made available to us hobbiest as well. Not that we would be able to feasibly use that data in practise, but rather to see in general if the historical morphology based classification is supported by the nucleic acid sequences. My quess is that for the most part it would be, but even then there might still be shades of gray even at the base pair level that would be argued, lol.

[Mommy2many]

So sorry to hear of the loss of your wife. Welcome to the forum. Nice to have you here.

[ConcinusMan]

Good news everyone, Rhea, Don, Steve. Forecast calls for sunny and 65 tomorrow and friday, and 70 for the first day of spring on Sat. 70 for Sunday. No wind, no clouds, high pressure, etc. NO CHANCE of rain or clouds. I have high hopes for luck with those temperatures and I don't have to work this weekend. Sounds like a weekend for breeding balls. Guess who's going to go stomping around in concinnus/ordinoides territory? (with his camera this time)

[Jeff B]

It has been warm here in Iowa too, saw my first garter snake this morning on the way to work, it was a red-sided, looked like a male, unfortunately it had been run over by a car, guessing either this morning, overnight or yesterday afternoon because it was still fairly fresh looking and not stiff yet.

[jitami]

My wife of 24 years was killed by a drunk driver in Racine county while riding her bike last year.

Ugh... I am so very sorry... I can't even imagine how difficult that would be. My sincere condolences to you and your family.

[ConcinusMan]

Seems the first day of spring and 70 degrees is what was needed to find my first garters of 2010. I did make that trip to Beaverton today. There were so many garter snakes that it was difficult not to step on them. First one sighted was a concinnus that moved extremely fast and disappeared. Wasn't expecting to see one in dense woods. Location: Tualitin/Beaverton, Oregon.

Anyway, I got out of the woods and into some swampy clearings and noticed a strange constant rustling sound. Turns out it was piles of dry leaves teeming with hundreds of ordinoides. Concinnus were not as plentiful but I still saw at least 10 good sized ones.

You may or may not recall a new user who posted pics of concinnus from this same area a couple of months ago and it was noted how the red in these snakes was nearly non-existent. He wasn't kidding. Nearly all the snakes I saw all but lack red. The markings are there, the patterns are normal but the red isn't red. It isn't even orange. I don't know quite how to explain it. Every snake I saw was anerythristic. I couldn't believe my eyes. Very few snakes had any red at all and even then it was represented by an extremely pale orange. Like most populations of concinnus I have encountered, some individuals have greenish dorsal stripes, some have yellow. Unlike Clark County, WA snakes, no laterally striped individuals were found. All other colors and head/neck/facial markings are typical.

Not manipulated. These snakes really do look like this. Not quite black and white but definitely anery. I didn't see a single snake in this area that had normal red/orange. All were anery in varying degrees.
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/9349/gedc0937.jpg

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3950/gedc0941.jpg

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/292/gedc0947.jpg

The ordinoides in this location were extraordinarily unattractive. Mostly dark grey with faint cream stripes. And man, there was a lot of them. Nothing remotely attractive except for a few that had a nice spotted pattern and good contrast. I didn't see any red or orange striped individuals or anything unusual or interesting. For that, I will have to try some of the sites around my area later.

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7492/gedc0950.jpg

[infernalis]

Still no sightings here.... not even a Dekayi.