Wildlife in our gardens

New neighbor with light brown coat and white breast. Possibly an immature redtail.

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Flicker

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Great shot!

Got lucky with an iPhone through my binoculars. The feeder is only 10’ from our window.

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Beautiful creature! Love birdies!

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Green tree frog hanging out on a recently chopped down banana…

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4 legged critters are better than two legged ones (humans)… 4 legged just looking for food and shelter, 2 legs are many things undesirable…

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Okay so i woke up to my dog huffing right at the dog bed next to the couch, I had assumed she cornered a spider and she was just on one so my wife went to move what she thought was a spider away and then did her best to not cry and tell me there was a snake in the house. I laughed and got up and there was definitely the tiniest snake ever just laying there. I grabbed gloves cuz i was sure it was dead but definitely alive and okay minus a small puncture wound. Gave him tiny amount of vitamin C in his water the puncture wound is healed over so maybe it happened a week ago?? we have had a good foot plus of snow for the past week so not sure when she found this or where (Garage?). I moved it into a box my cat cannot terrorize it in and put it under a seedling heat mat and gave it a bit more water. What is the process of getting this ready for hibernation, I could go ahead and dig him a hole and make him a good spot its been in the fourties out and full snow cover still but do not want to shock and kill it. Its pretty cute it has to be a garter snake but it should be full sized by now and maybe is a brown snake like one of the dekays?? Definitely not more than 6-8 inches long and the size of a baby, My wife wonders if there are more babies and this would be eggs hatching :joy:

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This summer why wife is swimming in pool and starts to yell “snake! Snake!” , jumps out of the pool like an electric current was going through it. I see the snake it’s the exact size of the one your holding…

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awwwww!

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To make her feel better we looked some stuff up and found out that these were born alive so there would not be a clutch of eggs hatching rather a momma snake giving live birth to 6-28 of these guys :joy: I wonder if it is a type of brown snake as it is incredibly small even for a baby. I dug it up a slug so it can have a varied diet. I need to upgrade and put in some renovations with some coir and get it some sunlight and a spot my cat can back off although i’m using this as further training that snakes = water. It seems until i can get some info on winterizing this snake its a companion until april or so?

Thats a 3.5" pot so definitely under 7" head size about the head of a pencil.

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definitely a garter. my daughter found one a little bigger than yours and convinced me to keep it. i made a cage of wood and plexi. i bought some crickets online to feed him. also put some minnows i netted in his water bowl. next morning they were gone. only put the heat mat under one side of the enclosure so he can get a spot to cool off. they are a cold weather snake so room temp. in there is fine for him. just needs a warm spot to help digest his food. id just keep him until spring. put some wood chips in there and a big piece of bark for a hide. he’ll be fine . mine loved the crickets. was fun to see him hunt them down.

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I moved it more so that it was half and half on the heatmat and put in a 2.5" pot on the other side so its got more hiding options, Its a 12" x 16" container and Im going to try and put more smaller air holes around for air exchange. I have a spot that gets some sun and sits right around 70. I need to get a better water bowl but i like the idea of minnows (i always hate the smell of crickets) and will try to dig up some compost grubs for him. The wife wants to know where the rest of his litter mates are at?

When I had a garter snake, I put earthworms in its water bowl for it.

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yep. they eat just about anything that crawls or swims. ours actually didn’t mind being handled. think he liked the heat of our hands. would just sit there.

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His head is barely the size of a lady bug so i sadly think i need to put some earthworms in there, but i am going to try to keep feeding him small compost grubs as i would rather not train him to eat earthworms (I am completely nuts).

@moose71 Today i accepted Morty (cuz hes small and scared) would probably be sticking around until april unless he brumates in which case i will go make him a hibernation spot. I started handling him he was pretty scared and moving much faster than on day 1 but i think he senses me and the dogs are okay cuz he will hang out but when the cat comes around he holes up.

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You can buy meal worms in the pet store. Just make sure not to leave them in the container for long. Bigger they get, more aggressive they become. We had anole time ago. It got sick and weak and stopped eating them, so they overgrew and , sad, eat the anole one day.

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Barred Owl hanging around. He’s huge…

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He’s huge and beautiful!

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saw a snowy owl the other day but couldn’t get the phone out in time. big one too!

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