Snake in a Lake
Me and my kids went on a bike ride to a little forest lake today, to smell the bog-myrtle and Labrador tea, hide a geocache and eat some Finnish marshmallows. And what did we encounter when walking along the shore? A swimming snake!
It was a grass snake, Sw. snok, Lat. Natrix natrix, venomless and very pretty with its white cheeks and dark body. I gather they like to swim, indeed the Latin name seems to mean "swimmer", and I suppose it was hunting for tadpoles. The mire at the lake's draining point is the scene of wild toad orgies about this time of year, though we saw none today.
Our snake was shy of us, so we left it alone and did our thing.
[More blog entries about snakes, Sweden; ormar, snok, Nacka.]
posted by Martin at 23:10
6 Comments:
I let your, and my, son read your blog today. He smiled and then shouted, in English, "I want lunch!!!" - he had lunch less than an hour ago. Then he told me that there is a pokémon called Politad, which can evolve to Poliwirl, which can evolve to Poliwrath. Gameboy, Gameboy...
Poliwhirl.
I look forward to the day when he starts to ask himself, "Is the person I'm talking to likely to be interested in the details of my computer games?".
What a beautiful snake! How large was it? Our cat has a slightly unpleasant habit of bringing garter smakes (pretty, with a bright orange streak down their bellies) into the house in the spring, which she doesn't kill, and we don't always catch her doing it. So sometimes we're surprised by a little snake wandering down the hall; one time I found one curled up amongst the videos.
I also have a vivid memory of wading up a creek one day and seeing a very large snake in the water with an even bigger fish in its mouth. Now that one gave me the willies.
I look forward to the day when he starts to ask himself, "Is the person I'm talking to likely to be interested in the details of my computer games?".
My younger brother, an otherwise pretty sensible boy, hasn't started asking himself that yet -- or is, at least, hiding it well if he has.
He's turning sixteen in less than a month.
//JJ
Martha, the site seems to lose quite a number of comments. My reply regarding the size of the snake was that I think it was about 80 cm long. The maximum is supposed to be 120 cm.
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