I Don't Like Snakes

[Driftless]

With the dog days of summer comes the days of me speaking locally. A couple weeks back I spoke at Riverdale Summer School. Today I spoke at Bethel Care Cove Day Services and at Bethel Home Maplewood Terrace in Viroqua.

The second group of the day was a lively bunch at.Maplewood Terrace They all loved my Trout Don't Live In Ugly Places Presentation.

I explained to them before I presented that were a few snakes and spiders in my show. Avis the young lady in the light blue with the white necklace told me she was not going to stay if my presentation included snakes. I told Avis I would go over the snake pictures quickly so I wouldn't stress her out and so she would stay.

All the ladies loved my show. Avis liked it about the best. Avis and I both knew a common person in Gays Mills and she even knew my family.

When I speak at nursing homes I explain to the residents that my presentation is not all about trout. It is about the beautiful places they live and the other animals and insects they share that beauty with. Many are not anglers but they appreciate the outdoors and they picked a few wildflowers as children and got muddy and wet as any angler.

[Mnfisher]

What a good idea to speak at Nursing homes about fish and the outdoors! I hope someone does that if I have to go to a nursing home some day! (Maybe take me fishing too!)

[cylinder]

What kind of snakes are they?

[mainbutter]

Assuming they are from the midwest:

The middle one's gotta be a northern water snake unless there are some other Nerodia that live nearby that I don't know about.

Are the other two both some kind of Pituophis? Elaphae? I'm going to give my best guess that the top one is a Bull (maybe a gopher) snake and the bottom one is a fox snake. I'm much better at identifying non-native species than I am natives, I have such a hard time the North American snakes. Get me into Australia and I'm golden

[Driftless]

Bull Snake

Northern Water Snake

Gopher Snake