Redbellied snake

Our dry spell continues but today there were a couple of snakes to be found and more desperate marbled salamanders came to Rainbow Bay.  The above picture is quite out of focus (sorry) but is of a Redbellied snake, Storeria occipitomaculata.  Two of these have been spotted this week, one at dry bay and one today at the H-02 wetlands.  These snakes remain pretty small and mostly eat slugs.  There was also a Black Racer at H-02 today.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it since I didn’t help run the bays today!  Figures it would work that way.  At least I got to see the Redbellied snake from Dry Bay since it was brought back to the lab.  There is a very slight chance of rain tonight so hopefully more than a handful of marbleds will come to the bay tomorrow.  I may have to start investigating to see if those that have entered have starting mating and laying eggs.  Hard for me to imagine them going through their courtship behavior in the bone dry nights we’ve had, but desperate times....