QUEEN OF THE MINT

Late yesterday morning, while skulking along trying to photograph several butterflies which were busily flitting about the sparse, somewhat stunted zinnias growing alongside the front walkway, I glanced down and saw this queen snake curled on the graveled path—practically at my feet!  

The truth is, the end of the snake's tail was so close to the toe of my right sneaker that I actually had to back off  a couple of feet in order to focus and make this image. Which goes to show you how unobservant I can be to my immediate surroundings when I'm fixated on picture-making.

Luckily, no damage was done and neither I nor the near-trodden serpent reacted adversely. Fact is, I like my resident queens, and take pride in knowing they're only found along rivers and creeks with clean waters and a good base of crayfish, their favorite food. Moreover, I was happy to see this near-two-footer—a rather large individual, as most queen snakes seldom exceed 18 inches. 

I withdrew sufficiently to make my shot; the demure queen snake simply watched, tucked snugly under a canopy of chocolate mint. And what a delightfully choice spot it was! Shade, cover, all continually perfumed by a most delicious fragrance. 

Truly a hidy-hole fit for a queen…well, providing some lumbering shutterbug didn't come along and trample you inadvertently.

THE MEANING OF A SNAKE

I found a queen snake in the grass a few minutes ago. On my way to turn on the watering hose at the wellhead, I looked down and there it was. Queen snakes don't get very large. A two-footer would (please excuse my silliness) be a king-sized queen. This one was about 18-inches long, still a good length for the species. 

The snake was about midways across an open but shady portion of the yard beyond the deck and downstream of the cottage. As it said, when I spotted it, the queen snake was smack in the middle of the grass patch, maybe a foot from my foot. I think we were both momentarily startled. Not that queen snakes are in the least threatening. On the contrary, they are quite docile natured. But having spent plenty of time in various parts of the country where snakes can be a problem, and being—I thought—accustomed to always watching my step, it's a shameful oversight to allow any snake-in-the-grass to get the drop on me—a blunder made all the more mortifying by the fact that what grass there was was short, sparse, dry, and struggling to survive in the near-100˚F heat. Which was why I intended to do some watering. That snake couldn't have been any more visible on the middle of the kitchen table. 

On the snake's part, I expect it was just hoping this large and obviously oblivious creature heading its way wouldn't trample it unintentionally.

The queen snake and I each remained calm. As I had my camera in hand (no, I don't water while toting my camera; I intended to place it out of harm's way atop the nearby picnic table) I made a shot, thinking I'd do a better job once I took care of that well valve. But when I got back, the snake was nowhere to be found. What I did find, however, about fifty feet away, was a second queen snake—this one no more than 6–8 inches long and the diameter of a pencil. A juvenile. 

Queen snakes are aquatic, spending almost the entirety of their lives in or close-to water, where their primary food source is crayfish. Yes, the river was no more than 35 feet away from where I found the bigger snake, and perhaps 60–70 feet distant from the second, smallest one. Still that's well beyond the bank, on very dry ground, in an environment totally different than their usual hunting bailiwick. Which, of course, begs the question…why? 

Two queen snakes in the yard, well away from water, is not coincidence but pattern. There's a reason I found them where I did. What is it? I have a theory—but I want to know. On the face of it, you might think such questions don't matter. Why care? Yet in the scheme of things, what does matter if not answers to such riddles? To not care is to find the message of earth and life—and ultimately, ourselves—inconsequential. Caring is what makes us human. Questions lead to answers, answers to knowledge, knowledge to understanding. 

I care to understand…and understand to care.

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QUEENS AGAIN ON THEIR THRONE

A month or so ago, I glanced into the thick growth of wild grapevine creeping its way up and around the lattice and rail of my stream-facing deck, and noticed something that didn't quite look like a vine tendril curled among the leaves. A closer look revealed a small queen snake sunning itself in the dappled shade—a visitor neither unwelcome nor unexpected.

I was pleased to find queen snakes along my home water when I initially moved to this riverside cottage. Since then I've had the opportunity of getting to observe and appreciate these gentle little snakes firsthand and quite often, and now count them valuable and delightful neighbors. [I posted about them here last year.]

Queen snakes are a non-poisonous species of water snake. They look something like a garter snake, their topside color ranging from olive-green to gray to a sort of medium red-tinged brown. A creamy-yellow stripe runs lengthways low on either side. The belly may be further striped—again, lengthways—with dark lines, though these stripes are most prominent in juveniles and tend to fade as the snake matures.

Like all water snakes, queen snakes have "keeled" scales—a tiny lengthways-running ridge on each scale. This ridge, much like the keel on a boat, helps keep the snake moving on course through the water by minimizing side-to-side slippage, which wastes motion and energy. This makes hunting and capturing prey much easier.

The queen snake's diet is almost exclusively fresh-water crayfish, with perhaps the occasion minnow or small frog. The crawfish are in the recently-molted stage—what bait fishermen refer to as being "soft craws." Because crawfish are numerous only in clean-running streams with lots of rocks along the bottom, queen snakes are thus indicators of a good quality watershed. As water quality declines, queen snakes disappear. Not every stream around can boast a resident population of queen snakes. Therefore, I view my slithering vistors as good omens.

A few days their initial reappearance, I found a small, foot-long queen snake partially hidden among the grape leaves. The skin looked vaguely different than normal. When I lifted the leaf that allowed me to see the queen snake's head, the skin's appearance was explained the moment I saw the creature's milky bluish eyes…my deckside queen snake was getting ready to shed its skin. All snakes shed their skins—at least the top layer of their skins, in a process known as ecdysis—throughout their lives as they grow. How often depends on their size. Older, larger snakes maybe several times per year; young, rapidly-growing juveniles, as often as every couple of weeks. I've since noted several other queen snakes sporting milky-blue pre-shed eyes.

Queen snakes seldom grow much over a couple of feet in length. On the day when I spotted the first queen snake of the season, I carefully scrutinized the tangle of vines and leaves hanging on the streamside of the deck. Queen snakes are docile and generally pretty tolerant of my close-up looks and photo fussing. But they have their limits. Disturb them too much and they'll promptly drop off the vine into the water. Eventually, I managed to count a total of eight queen snakes sequestered within the vegetation. They ranged in size from two feet long and the diameter of my thumb, to maybe six or seven inches and no bigger around than a pencil.

Obviously, I had a healthy population of queen snakes here along the riverbank—a fact which I found inordinately pleasing. I like my queen snakes and was glad to see they'd returned to their favorite sunbathing spot.

Since this initial return day, my resident queen snakes have put in a appearance every day when it wasn't cold or pouring the rain. In fact, I've just come back from giving the deck, rail, and what of the now thickly-leaved hanging grapevine I can still peer into, a quick look…and counted three queen snakes ensconced therein; about average for any given check. Sometimes I see them in the stream below, nosing along the pool's rocks as they search for crawfish—though not today because the water's up a bit and muddy due to rain yesterday.

While other folks might be appalled at the notion sunbathing snakes so close to their house, I enjoy having them around. Even Myladylove sees them as a good sign and is willing to tolerate them so long as they don't decide to move into the cottage. Even a gentle, retiring queen snake can't ask for more than that.

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SUNBATHING QUEEN

One of the things I’m occasionally asked by visitors to the riverbank is: “You got a lot of snakes around?”

Most of the time, it’s a good bet the questioner lives in the city—or if they’re daring, and have in their own way given in to the pioneer spirit, in one of those well-manicured suburban developments with sidewalks and grass and the odd miniature tree your average countryman might consider a bush. Sure, their development may be located less than a half-mile beyond the last strip-mall, in what was once a corn or soybean field—but they consider themselves homesteaders surviving on the edge of civilization. Why, they'll report, proud of their ability to weather hardship, they have to actually get in their Beemer and drive to the nearest Starbucks!

These folks, bless their trembling souls, view my riverside home as they might a rough compound on the banks of the Amazon. The thicket of greenery along the water and the tall trees poking high into a smog-free sky is, to them, a jungle. And like any good jungle remembered from reruns of the old black-and-white Tarzan movies they watched as a kid, the dark tangles of willow and hackberry and sycamore must doubtless be crammed with slithering serpents.

Well…no. Sorry to disappoint. But we riverbankers are no more overrun with snakes than we are with frogs and toads and turtles. I do see a snake from time to time—perhaps a small garter snake in the yard, or a water snake near or in the stream. And that’s about the extent of such encounters; I don’t wade through masses of writhing snakes to check the mailbox.

Regarding water snakes, there are two species found hereabouts. The northern water snake, Nerodia sipedon, is generally the most common species seen along local lakeshores and streams. Yet I almost never find one on my section of water. Instead, I’m more apt to see a queen snake, Regina septemvittata, a fairly uncommon member of the water snake family.

Queen snakes, in spite of their name, are water snakes—though they’re far prettier than their plebian northern cousins. Neither snake is poisonous. But the northern water snake is unquestionably more cantankerous and aggressive—quick to make a threatening strike at your boot toe or reaching hand, and ready to bite if you pick them up carelessly. If that’s not enough, they’ll reiterate their hostility by releasing a squirt of malodorous feces and back it up with a shot of stinky musk from their anal gland.

The shyer queen snake, in contrast, is rather docile. You can usually capture one quite easily—though the double dose of foul smelling s

cent remains a possibility.

Queen snakes seldom grow larger than a couple of feet. They hunt by smell rather than heat detection or sight, and often capture their prey under water. They feed almost exclusively on aquatic fare—minnows, tadpoles, frogs, snails—though the bulk of their diet is newly molted crayfish, what a bait fishermen calls a “soft craw.” For this reason—because crayfish are found only in clean, unpolluted rivers and creeks—queen snakes are a good indicator species of a stream’s high water quality.

I sometimes watch a queen snake hunting around the edge of the big pool in front of the cottage. The snake will swim from rock-to-rock, then dive and investigate underwater, resurface, and repeat a time or two before moving to another location.

The other day I noted several clumps of midges milling about on a small section of slowly-backswirling water. Minnows would regularly dart up and nab a bug off the surface. All the while, a queen snake kept surfacing and diving through this same area, presumably feeding on the minnows working the midges.

The queen snakes in the photos (there are two different snakes) regularly sun themselves on the rails of the narrow deck which spans the width of the cottage and overlooks the river. I’ve allowed a wild grape vine to grow all over the water side of this deck, climbing through the lattice so it now drapes from the handrail to the edge of the water, a dozen feet below, like a thick green curtain. One day last week, I counted three queen snakes…uh…hanging around.

This is typical queen snake behavior. Queen snakes like to bask on a limb or root above the water, and usually drop off immediately at any nearby movement or the first hint of danger. However, with my deck snakes, I’ve found that if I’m careful, I can move freely around without causing them alarm.

Incidentally, this deck—while thirty feet long—is only about six feet wide. In case you’re wondering, I’ve never seen one of these queen snakes any closer to the cottage walls than this six-foot distance; they’re remain discreetly on the water side.

I suppose for most readers, this sounds like too many snakes too close to the house. But I don’t mind them being around. They’re perfectly harmless (unless you’re a soft craw) and no trouble. That’s sufficient to make them good neighbors, in my book. Plus I like the fact they keep reminding me that my beloved river is healthy.