Happy Halloween

Here are this years selection for the Halloween theme. Of course, you know me, I don't think any of these beauties are scary or spooky. The only species I find to be the stuff of nightmares are homo sapiens and thankfully there aren't any of those in my yard (yours truly excepted, and hubby too!) 

A Regal Year

King Snakes are usually a rare sighting on our land but this year we are virtually tripping over them. I wonder how this will effect the populations of other snake species we usually see more regularly. Hopefully they won't all disappear.

Long Live The King!

If you follow my blog then you know that I love having snakes in my yard so it is always with very mixed feelings that I observe a visiting King Snake.

Why the contradiction you ask? Well the reason that King Snakes are so called is because they kill and eat other snakes, including venomous ones.

So while I love watching them making their sinuous way around my patio I sort of hope that they are just passing through and don't stay too long.

Although judging by the way this one made its way down a hole beneath one of our saguaros, I suspect that might be a vain hope.

But such is the way of a balanced ecosystem, there will always be the hunter and the hunted.

Another New Species

I always get excited when a new species appears in my yard especially one as interesting as this. There are several different sub-species of Kingsnakes, so named for their ability to kill and eat other snakes, including venomous ones. Our yard happens to fall right on the boundary where the sub-species changes from the California Kingsnake to the Desert Kingsnake and this individual shows characteristics of both. This is not unusual were the range of the two sub-species meet. This particular individual was just slithering out of our pool having taken a cooling dip when I managed to catch a photo.