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
Good neighbors make a greater impact How viper behavior increases their effect on prey populations The sound of domestic cats fighting is probably familiar to most readers of this blog. Like most predators, cats defend their turf and the resources within. Prey is often scarce and starvation a real possibility, so it makes sense to fight for access to these resources.… Read More
This little piggy went to Muleshoe… Have you ever watched a whiptail lizard run from you at lightning speed and wondered how anything ever manages to catch and eat them? Well, I’m about to tell you. On my way home from work, I noticed a western patch-nosed snake stretched out in the bare soil next to the walking path. She immediately… Read More
Desert Dining On a humid Sonoran Desert evening we met up with Roger Repp and Gordon Schuett at their study site along with some old friends from near and far. Wandering the washes, we find a juvenile desert rodent stumbling out of a hackberry bush into the dry stream channel. It turns at our approach and manages… Read More
Pretty in Pink 28 April: Molly basks briefly before leaving the security of the den to fulfill what is on every rattlesnake’s mind: the first meal of the year. It’s been over seven months since they’ve last had a chance to eat, so they’re probably quite hungry. Molly comes out first and coils on the left. The snake… Read More