radix in S. Alberta

[Spankenstyne]

Managed to find some gorgeous plains garters while out an about this week. Nice to see some wild snakes after this long winter and hopefully a good omen for a field trip planned for tomorrow.

You can see that even though they have some nice bright colours they can be hard to spot even when you're looking for them:


Closer. This one let me get decently close before finally tiring of my shenanigans and slipping into the water


Love the yellows on these


Wish I had more time to look for more & get better shots. Hopefully tomorrow proves fruitful & I'll be sure to add to this

[ssssnakeluvr]

That is awesome!!! I want some with the nice orange stripes!

[guidofatherof5]

Great orange dorsal. Wow.
Is that a yellowish lateral?
Looks like a prime hunting(food) area for that radix.
Nice male.

[charles parenteau]

What a vertebral strippe nice orange beautiful!!Nice catch!

[tennfan56]

That is crazy. Unlike any radix I have seen before. Great find!

[RdubSnider]

Very nice find. Awesome dorsal stripe

[d_virginiana]

Nice snake! Love the stripes on it.

[Boots]

Very nice. They always seem to be more elusive when I am trying to spot some.

Jason

[Spankenstyne]

Thanks for the kind words. It was great to see a couple the two times I got out this week. The first time I checked some places I had spotted a big beast last year and didn't see any... Then of course after a while as I turned the camera off and started towards my truck one slithers right in front of me haha.. I got the camera back on in time for this terrible shot that again shows how well they are hidden in their native habitats. See if you can spot it:



I was following it and made the mistake of taking my eyes off it for a split second while trying to adjust the flash setting and of course lost it in the grass likey down one of the many holes. I blame the winter rust on that silly mistake.

Steve it might depend on the monitor (and if I took better pics hah), the lateral and up under the face are quite a vibrant yellow in person. I did notice it looked a lot more off when I viewed on my laptop too though, and the shots aren't that great.

Love the orange and yellow on these, they're very typical in that area. In fact every one I've seen in that area looks just like that. Again I really wish we were allowed to work with them here. We can keep the 3 local ssp as pets but unfortunately aren't allowed to breed, sell, export, or import them.

[ConcinusMan]

Pretty radix