Soaring summer temperatures have caused the water level in some areas of my marshland park to drop and Northern Water snakes (Nerodia sipedon) can now be seen trolling these shallow waters for prey. Yesterday, in one small area I saw three of these snakes and managed to get shots of two them.
Sometimes the snakes will sit on brush and logs just above the level of the water, as in the first photo, while in other cases they submerge their bodies in the water, with their heads sticking out of the water, as in the second photo.
I like the way that the first image shows the details of the snake’s scales and like how the second photo highlights the marking on the snake’s body (and realize that some folks may find both images to be creepy).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
I wonder if there are any poisonous snakes in Virginia. I’ve only seen a couple of small, very fast snakes here this year.
There is a creepy fascination to snakes.
Snakes and spiders are in that same category for me, fascinating but creepy.
[…] Snakes are out […]
Their scale patterns are so different, or is that an artifact of one being in the water and one not?
That’s a tough call, Sue. There were three snakes all hanging out together, with one of them smaller than the other two. The only ones that I managed to photograph were the two bigger ones. From what I read in Wikipedia, the scales of Northern Water snakes darken with age and some may become completely black.