Moving Right Along...

Hey there everybody!  Hope you’re enjoying the day so far!  This is your regularly scheduled update and hello from the wonderful world of environmental education and the ECO Bus.  J  Things are going well here at the park - we’ve been working on the bus’ construction, scheduling programs and in general getting things all set to kick off a great and busy season of EE (that’s environmental education for you newcomers!).  Our first big event is coming up on Saturday, April 5^th- at the Kathleen Clay library.  They’re having an Earth Day Celebration and the bus and us (yeah, sorry- I didn’t actually mean to rhyme that) will be in attendance to have some fun and spread some knowledge.  You guys should definitely come out to visit!  And the next Saturday (4/12) we will be up at the Herp Fest in Burlington.  We’ll be talking all about native reptiles and amphibians (and you know I’m bringing a few with us!) J 

Oh, and good news!  Even in the midst of all this nasty winter weather that just won’t seem to go away, we have officially seen the first snake of the season!  Last Friday while in the woods at Lake Brandt, Neil happened upon a nice size garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) coiled up and getting some sun on the nice warm day.  These snakes are very cool - they’re primarily fish and invertebrate eaters, they have live babies and when they go dormant during the colder months they have a tendency to do it with company.  Garter snakes (as well as a number of other species) will actually congregate in a sheltered area called a hibernacula in large masses to hibernate together. 

 

They don’t get very large and are harmless, attractive snakes - actually very popular in the pet industry.  Wild ones have a tendency to musk (spray a stinky secretion from a gland by their back end or cloaca) when handled or bothered but captive raised ones are usually pretty docile.  In fact, my first pet snake was a garter snake.  J 

Well hope all of you have a great week and I’ll keep you updated as things happen here!  See you soon!