I thought I had all the wildlife figured out here!

(excuse the coffee pot scene in our kitchen...believe me all you moms out there I do not want to encourage this kind of stuff but I just happen to be the chief cook and bottle washer in this house so I can do whatever I want!!!)

So I walk out into my back garden as usual to do some watering. I hand water some of the plants near the house with a watering can because they are drier than the rest. Walking towards the hose to do the rest of the watering this shiny squiggly thing darts across my path. Of course I do not hesitate to grab it. Voila! I am holding in my hand a beautiful Ring-neck snake! Such a little almost worm-like snake less than 12" long yet he(she) curls the lower parts of the body in such a way to flash the brilliant orange-red under parts and tightly grasps my fingers with the supple body. It is really neat that this critter is related to the constrictors like the rat and gopher snakes and has the same clinging way of crawling about as opposed to flaying about as a garter snake would. Of course as with many snakes when caught also exudes a skunky kind of musk that would make a normal person let go!

Notice that the tail is tightly curled revealing the flashy under colors. That is how this clever snake escapes predators. This particular snake has survived because of its good genes. It lost part of its tail instead of losing its head which is where any would-be predator  would go for! Sometimes it is better to play the FOOL than stand up and fight...especially when the odds are against you! Unfortunately if the predatator had been a King Snake...see the following...then there would be no foolery to escape!

The Ring -neck snake would not normally be found in my location. It is usually found in moist areas of the mountains and riparian habitats and meadows of the foothills. It just so happens that I have enough moisture and plenty of frogs, worms, and insects to give it a wonderful home! I removed a intruder kingsnake several months ago which would have had this little guy as an appetizer! The kingsnake was one that probably escaped from a would-be young herpetologist who caught it in the mountains and brought it home. I love kingsnakes especially because they eat rats and mice but they eat just about everything else! Daa! That is why they are "king".

I have not seen a Coachwhip snake in a long time. These are magnificent creatures in their ability to burst into great speeds for such a relatively small creature. They are also great tree climbers and thus prey upon birds, eggs, and young as well as rodents, lizards, etc. They are also closely related to the ring neck snake. They do not use constriction like the king, or gopher snake but have powerful muscles to apply pressure against their prey with their bodies as they are swallowing it. Usually the prey is small and is consumed so rapidly that there is no need for any kind of constriction!
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Part 2:

Just look at all the yummy stuff that we throw away from our kitchens! This is BSF paradise!

By the way, if you have heard rumers that BSF takeovers of your kitchen garbage scraps seem to repel fruit flies and the common flies that harrass us continually you would have heard the absolute truth! I rarely see any flies about this garbage container...and by the way they apparently digest all kinds of garbage so thoroughly that there is VERY LITTLE ODOR! I also get this wonderfully disgusting looking thick "tea" which the plants just LOVE!

I have these neat butterfly cages (or tents) complete with a view window side and a zip side for access. I placed a container of compost as an experiment which houses primarily larvae of the Black soldier fly. I wanted to have more control over later stages such as pupation and emergence of adult flies. The goal is to be able to successfully produce large numbers of black soldier flies for use in converting kitchen garbage almost overnight into useble compost for the garden. They seem to also have the ability to repel the usually pesky fruit and house flies! Once they are started the will apparently eat just about anything with very little of the odor that would be associated with other flies. I have several pics which I hope to be able to share.

(photo courtesy of paulwhwest)

(one of my garden budies!)

You have to notice that the thorax, which is the middle part of the insect body, appears to be armored much like a Roman soldier! Daa! maybe that is why they are called Black soldier flies! By the way the word thorax comes from the Latin thorac-, thorax breastplate and Greek thorak-,thorax. Therefore the Black soldier fly seems to display the ultimate thorax!!! Wheee! HOO Haa! Yeaa!

I tell you if I came face to face with something like this I would just as likely make like a plant or a dead twig or something like that!

It is hard to really call them a fly...I have a feeling they might be insulted! They could easily make a handsome wasp!

Two little lovebirds they are! I am sure that if I hadn't caught them in a yoghurt container they would have soon made love as black flies do. (I admit that I cheated and put the yoghurt container in the frige for a few minutes to get this picture! I would have taken more but they buzzed off a couple of seconds after this pic!)

(Not my pic but an unknown from a BSF web page)

At any rate this leads to my other neat little story...

I happened to find once again, the same praying mantis female that I had found in the garden and released into what I thought would be a more appropriate area of the garden for it's survival. This time I put it into my "butterfly tent" with the compost tub...The very next night as I was getting ready to go to bed I walked into my bedroom just as this fluttering thing came at me through the open slider door opposite my bedroom door. I reached up and grabbed it and what do you think it was? The odds are probably a million or more to one but yes it was a mature male mantis. You might think that I have a garden of mantids. I do not!!! Since that time which was a couple of weeks ago and before that time the only mantids that I have seen were the much smaller native species and these two of the typical"released insect control" species. I am in the garden every single day and see all kinds of stuff like my ring neck snake but ther have been no other mantids!!! So...do ya get it! Is it FATE or what?!

Now, of course this was a match made in heaven! Over a period of many days there was this dance where the male stayed about 1 ft away from wherever the female was. For fear that the skinnier, weaker male would be consumed I made sure that the female had plenty to eat. (she was gettiing big and fat) I noticed how touchy the male was at this point when I tried to offer him an insect- he violently reared up and spread his wing in a manner that made even me jerk back! Apparently that is how he could also keep the potentially cannibalistic female at bay!

I probably should have kept track of the timing but one day the male captured the love of his life! He was obviously a skillful and healthy male as he had succeeded in grasping her in the precise spot at what you or I might consider "shoulders" where here powerful for-feet conect to her narrow thorax. One thwarted move to achieve this would have made him just another meal for the female!

Now If you thought this was going to be a one-night stand you would be way out in left field! Several days went during which the male may or not have been successful in copulating. They broke up for a day or two and then again they were together again. This time there seemed to be some real action...Apparantly it all depends how ready the female is.....hmmm?!

So, ok it is now three days since they have separated. I fed the female yesterday and today. The first day she started to lay a foam nest then abruptly deserted it. 2nd day gave her a big meal. Today gave her another good sized insect. She seems to almost be doubling her size! I cannot find the male anywhere. He has possibly been eaten or has served his purpose and died of exhaustion from all the maneuvering and postulating! I suspect she will be laying soon after a couple of good meals.

By the way...the black soldier flies are doing great. There are several that have dropped to the floor of the netting cage to pupate.

I need to figure out how to do pics...as I have much of what I have described in pictures. Hope to add these soon. (Rather than delete this line I am proud to say that I figured out all of the steps on my own to download off my camera via my Kodak software, edit the pics, download to my computer and then put them into this blog!!! How is that for a self taught computer-illiterate die-hard old hippie?!)

Signing off as your,

natureguy

Michael