Daryl Plays Catch-up A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 5 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 4 What would a downpour do to Carol’s scent trail? It’s already been a couple of days since she passed over the ground here – did Daryl miss his chance at love, at least for now? The ground is… Read More
Daryl Prowls A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 4 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 3 He again gave a little buzz to remind me he’s not to be trifled with. I alerted Melissa so we could get photos, and we watched him begin to inspect some of the very places we had watched… Read More
Carol Stays for Seconds A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 3 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 2 The day Carol revealed herself to us, consuming a whiptail on our doorstep, she ended up on the far side of the garage, under an old metal sheet. As night fell, I cast a dim light under her… Read More
Carol Comes for Dinner A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 2 Read: A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 1 The bike ride was hard, and now I was hungry. I set up the solar oven outside our front entrance to preheat, and flopped onto the couch. Not 10 minutes had gone by when I returned outside with… Read More
Daryl Saves A Tale of Two Trash Snakes Part 1 Well into our second summer, we didn’t have much hope left that we’d moved to serpent’s paradise. We had traded the city for the Gila National Forest with high hopes of snakes on our doorstep, but with each passing, snakeless day, we questioned whether our forested, northern… Read More
Just for kicks? Ecologists study how interactions between species affect populations. Trophic (feeding) interactions are the most obvious (e.g., lions eat zebras), but competition and mutualism are also important in structuring populations residing together. Food webs consider how seemingly non-interacting populations of species may influence each other indirectly, often through the actions of other species. How individuals interact… Read More
What a cluster! This time of year at Muleshoe, it’s not hard to see snakes every day if you mean to. Even though it’s hot and dry and they aren’t moving much, we have a couple of “regulars” that hang around headquarters as well as four snakes that we radio-track. And even though the monsoon has not yet… Read More