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Posts Tagged ‘black racer’

Black Racer snake

Posted in Nature, Photography, Reptiles, snake, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on April 29, 2021| 12 Comments »

I got a definite “Don’t mess with me” vibe when I encountered this Northern Black Racer snake (Coluber constrictor constrictor) last week at Occoquan Regional Park and moved on quickly after capturing these images. Most snakes slither away when they first detect my presence, but this one reared up a bit and started to feverish flick its forked tongue at me.

Black Racers are somewhat similar in appearance to the Eastern Rat Snake that I featured last week (See the posting Ready to shed?), but are a bit smaller in size and have shinier, smoother skins. Several of my Facebook friends noted that Black Racers also tend to be more aggressive and reported having been chased by one.


Black Racer

Black Racer

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Springtime snake

Posted in Nature, Photography, Reptiles, snake, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2020| 16 Comments »

Our recent warm weather has caused all kinds of creatures to reappear, like this Eastern Ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis) that I spotted on Wednesday while hiking in Prince William Forest Park. I kept my distance and relied on a telephoto lens to zoom closer even though I knew that this snake was not poisonous. I am not sure how long the snake was, but as you can see in the second photo it looked to be quite long. According to the Virginia Herpetological Society website, the Eastern Ratsnake is the only snake in Virginia that can grow to be more than six feet (183 cm) in length.

UPDATE: A snake expert weighed in on my Facebook posting about this snake and noted that, “This is a Black Racer (Coluber constrictor constrictor). It’s harder to tell with the mud, but the dorsal scales are unkeeled, the skull shape too round, scale shape more rhombus-like, and eyes too big.” This just reinforces the notion that the more that I learn, the more I realize how little I know—that is why it is great to have experts around to help us identify what we see and photograph. The average size of a Northern Black Racer is “only” 36-60 inches (90-152 cm).

 

Eastern Ratsnake

Eastern Ratsnake

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Northern Black Racer

Posted in Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Reptiles, tagged , , , , , , on April 14, 2013| 6 Comments »

When I came across this fairly large snake, which I think is a Northern Black Racer snake (Coluber constrictor constrictor), I was happy that I had a fairly long telephoto lens.

He looked to be about 48 inches long (1.2 meters) and was partially coiled on top of a bush at the edge of the beaver pond at my local marsh. Although he was basking in the sun, he was definitely alert, which was one of the reasons why I was very cautious. The photo provides a close-up view of his head, but it was shot with my zoom lens at about 340mm, so I was not close and personal with him.

Wikipedia notes that this snake usually swallows its prey alive, despite the “constrictor” in its Latin name. Although these snakes will try to avoid predators, “once cornered they put up a vigorous fight, biting hard and often.” I’ll definitely keep that in mind.

One other interesting bit of trivia that I discovered about the Northern Black Racer snake (and I recognize that I could be wrong in my identification) is that the snake was designated as the official state reptile of Ohio in 1995.

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Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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