Today I finally photographed my first snake of the year (‘bout time!): a juvenile Northern Water Snake swimming in Seven Mile Creek at Ellington Agricultural Center. I have been surveying this area of Seven Mile Creek every time I hike at Ellington, thinking that, with all the flat rock shelves in the sun, I was bound to eventually find water snakes sunning themselves there. It finally happened.

This is a juvenile Northern Water Snake, probably one year old, since it is too early (I think) for this year’s newborn water snakes.

I spent 30 minutes hovering around the area, hoping to capture the snake and get some really good photographs. My persistence paid off in that I got a couple of extra shots, but the snake did not swim close enough to the edge for me to capture it. Darn!

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Resources: Northern water snake

• Northern water snake – UMass
• Northern watersnake – Savannah River Ecology Laboratory
• Northern water snake – Snakes and Frogs
• Northern Water Snake – Nerodia sipedon – HerpNet
• Northern Water Snake Nerodia sipedon – eNature
• Northern Watersnake
• Northern water snake – Wikipedia