OR Red Spotted/Northwestern Den

[ConcinusMan]

Steve is doing it so I thought I would share this den with everyone. It's in northwest Oregon and is shared by T. ordinoides and T.s. concinnus.

The weather here has been unusually cold and wet for this time of year so activity and number of snakes is limited but there's still plenty of action going on during breaks in the rain on warmer days. Temperatures around 60 with some sunbreaks is enough to get a few stirring.

Here's the den itself. A rock wall embankment, facing south, gets plenty of sun, and has lots of entry points. It's also down in a recessed area with plenty of forest around to help shelter the den from the bitterly cold and harsh westerly wind that blows in the winter.
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/2406/rockwalldenlarge.jpg

Some copulating was observed. Two concinnus' locked up:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8035/dsc00111large.jpg

Northwesterns also locked up. After I took this pic, female here became aware of my presence and flattened her head, and did the weird "slow tongue" thing, trying to act all tough.

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/9316/dsc00123large.jpg

I'll add more pics later...

[kibakiba]

Northwesterns in your area look weird. The ones here are almost always really dark coloured, dark, golden brown eyes with an extremely visible stripe. Despite being kind of bold, they are hard to see in the tall grass. Those ones also have a different looking head shape. Mama's head is a bit boxy. They have a very cute look to them, though. The eyes look weird, though. Are they somewhat whitish?

[ConcinusMan]

Natural selection my dear Chantel. There is always differences depending on where you go. Sure, they are still polymorphic and still have variation within a population, but if I go just a couple of miles away to another population, they will often mostly have a different look to them. Just so happens this spot has mostly ugly dull ones like those two, but there are still a few nice ones around. I got my red stripe girl at this very same location. A few miles away, I may find mostly well defined yellow or white stripes, in another location, maybe mostly orange or rust colored stripes. It just depends on the highly localized gene pool.

Here's some others from the same spot:

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/619/dsc00159large.jpg

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/1746/dsc00076large.jpg

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2857/dsc00131large.jpg

[kibakiba]

I know it's natural selection, but I still haven't seen any like that. I've always seen ones that look at least a bit similar to mine, especially the really bold colourful stripes. Of course, I haven't seen any other than my own in real life, but online.

I find the "dull, ugly" ones are the most beautiful. I'd rather have a dull and ugly snake than something awesome and flashy. Mama is just brown with an off white stripe and she's one of the most beautiful garters I've seen. Sure, others are cool or pretty, but Mama's prettier.

[RedSidedSPR]

I find the "dull, ugly" ones are the most beautiful.

I agree. Although I don't I don't know if I like them more than the flashy ones.
I'd rather have a normal red sided (like mine) than a flame morph eastern. But I'd love a flame morph... I Just like the natural ones most.

[ConcinusMan]

Flames are a natural morph.

[PINJOHN]

Flames are a natural morph.
i thought i read somewhere that a doctor something or other inbred them over a number of years

[ConcinusMan]

That very well may be true, and they may have been changed a bit over generations of line breeding for more intense color, but flames are a natural morph found in Canada.

These are wild caught Canadian flame easterns belonging to Charles:
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s152/parenteau/P1270177.jpg

But we are a little of topic. Let's not turn it into a flame eastern thread.;)

[PINJOHN]

had no idea, i thought flames were man created ,another demonstration of what a great and informative site this is. no more mention of flames i promise

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Very nice Richard.

[ConcinusMan]

Dang. I had the video settings on lowest quality/resolution. No HD. concinnus' mating in the wild at the den site:

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4354/dsc00088large.jpg
q_NjcOv9Pfg
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/5616/dsc00036large.jpg

[kibakiba]

Your lowest setting looks way better than my highest setting... :rolleyes:

[ConcinusMan]

You know what's funny, in it's original format, played on my computer, it looks terrible. Poor decoder I suppose. Once it's uploaded to youtube, they convert it to another format, and then all of the sudden it looks decent. Still, it didn't pick up on the color very well either. Those two snakes in the video look anery but they weren't. They were light orange/yellowish.

[Jeff B]

Very nice pics Richard, you're lucky to have a den site like that that you can go to. I like that pic with the little fungi growing in the background. Beautiful forest out in that area of the country, would like to visit that general area someday.

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, nice to visit. But I have to live here.:p All I have to say is, bring an umbrella even if it's the peak of summer, waders too and don't stay too long or you will develop webbed feet. Don't blink while you're here, you'll miss summer.

But seriously, you could go any place within 15 square miles of this spot, and den or no den, you'll get to see plenty of snakes in any pocket of appropriate habitat. I am actually surrounded by a highly urbanized area at this location. I'm perhaps a 5 minute walk from strip malls, mass transit, light rail, crowds, traffic.. etc. It's really an oasis in a sea of metropolis.

Oh, and it's not a fugus, it's lichen. Right Stefan? No wait, it's a mushroom. No, mold, oh crud. I just know the stuff grows on everything where it rains a lot. If a surface around here isn't covered in asphalt, it's covered in moss, lichen, molds, or fungi.

[ConcinusMan]

Well guys, I do have several more videos of den activity to show you but I'm back to getting "upload failed due to unknown error" every dang time I try to put them on youtube. *sigh*

Seems to do this periodically, lasting from just a day or two, to several weeks. I have no idea why.

[kibakiba]

I get that all the time if I try to upload it as an avi. No matter what it is, if it's an avi it never works for me. Maybe you're having the same trouble as I did?

[ConcinusMan]

No. Same format I always upload and it's definitely not avi. The videos I upload comply with the specs recommended by youtube. It just goes through periods of time when I can't upload anything without it failing. It's seriously crippling this thread since I have tons of footage to show you from the den, but I can't get it uploaded. This sucks.

[ConcinusMan]

Finally...

0EKe2CFZFoI

[ConcinusMan]

x2n5XMiXVRw

[PINJOHN]

thanks Richard for the great pictures, still and movie, impossible to say just how grateful myself, and many others i'm sure, are to you and Steve for all this wild den stuff. i'm sure you have nothing better to do than to feed my obsession with this, so get your ar$e back up there:D

[kibakiba]

Better not show the one with the concinnus to my mom... She'd want Snap and Ember gone in an instant. :D She's already too scared to hold Ember, he's grown an inch and a half this week. Gonna be a monster if he keeps it up ;)

[ConcinusMan]

thanks Richard for the great pictures, still and movie, impossible to say just how grateful myself, and many others i'm sure, are to you and Steve for all this wild den stuff. i'm sure you have nothing better to do than to feed my obsession with this, so get your ar$e back up there:D

Will do. The weather is going to be great over the next 5 days or so, finally. Unfortunately, I can't spend as much time there, or go as often as Steve can. My den is 26 miles from home.:(

Still waiting for 70 degrees dangit. That's when the real action begins. Not going to happen this week but it should be good enough for some activity.

[ConcinusMan]

good news! http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/breeding/7666-bob-masons-thoughts-my-3-stripe-polymorphic-concinnus-3.html#post157335