Vipers (Viperidae) – LIFE IN THE LOWER SUSQUEHANNA RIVER WATERSHED

June 1, 2023July 15, 2023

Forty Years Ago in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Day Twelve

Back in late May of 1983, four members of the Lancaster County Bird Club—Russ Markert, Harold Morrrin, Steve Santner, and your editor—embarked on an energetic trip to find, observe, and photograph birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. What follows is a daily account of that two-week-long expedition. Notes logged by Markert some four decades ago are quoted in italics. The images are scans of 35 mm color slide photographs taken along the way by your editor.

DAY TWELVE—June 1, 1983

“KOA Hammond, LA”

“We stopped early today — About 2:30 P.M. Cleaned the interior of the camper, washed the windows, and put everything where it belonged. The windshield was a buggy mess. Had supper according to the menu. Took pictures of the place. Had a shower. Loafed all evening.”

After being on the go for twelve to sixteen hours a day for more than a week, it was nice to catch up on our “housekeeping”, field notes, and rest. The campground, which was yet another nearly empty one, had an in-ground pool, so I decided to go for a swim. As I went through the gate, I noticed that the water was a little bit dull, not sparkling clear as if treated by the usual dose of chemicals. Upon getting closer, I could see what looked like a layer of mulm at the bottom of the pool, similar to the detritus and waste that accumulates atop the substrate in an otherwise clear aquarium tank. Needless to say, I postponed the swim. Later, when we happened to be in the office, I asked the owners about the pool and was momentarily puzzled when they told us that the entire campground had been flooded last month. This was at first surprising because no stream, creek, or river was in sight, but the land is so flat and the elevation so uniform in southwestern Louisiana that a couple of feet of water can inundate miles and miles of these lowlands. As on a beach or on a delta, building anything of value in a floodplain is risky business.

On June 2, we resumed our drive, then spent the night at the KOA campground in Sweetwater, Tennessee, at the same accommodations we visited while southbound on May 21. There, I finally had my refreshing swim. By the following evening, June 3, we had arrived back in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. During the trip from the Brownsville Airport to Lititz, Pennsylvania, the odometer had registered 1,945 miles.

This then, prompted and fortified by the notes kept by Russ Markert, have been your editor’s recollections from his ever-evaporating river of memories of an adventure forty years gone. I hope you’ve enjoyed this modern-style slide show describing our journey to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. I’m grateful to each of my traveling companions for inviting me to share this experience with them and am equally glad to have had the opportunity to share the story of our trip with you.

If traveling to see the wildlife and plant communities of south Texas seems like something that might interest you, I strongly urge you to go. Many more tropical species, including native parrots, are now found north of the border and the opportunity to see vagrants is still better there than anywhere else in the country. The hundreds of species of butterflies and the spectacular migrations of the Neotropical birds that nest here in the the higher latitudes make it a place you need to visit at least once in a lifetime. The cooler months of the year can be a comfortable time to make the trip. You’ll see wintering birds from both eastern and western portions of the United States and Canada, some in numbers that might amaze you.

If the Lower Rio Grande Valley is something outside your means, then may I suggest a visit to ZooAmerica in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The theme of the collection is North American wildlife and the self-guided tour is organized by regional habitat types including the southern swamps and the southwestern deserts and scrubland. Some of the animals we saw on our expedition, and some that we missed, are among the species under their care.

The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) is a resident of the Texas scrublands and deserts. Unless you’re looking for trouble by recklessly wading through the thornscrub, the only time you might get lucky enough to find one in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is late in the day when they emerge from hiding to enjoy the warmth of a quiet road or other sun-drenched surface. We weren’t that fortunate, so I photographed this one in the desert southwest exhibit at ZooAmerica in Hershey, Pennsylvania. (A modern digital image)

You can see these Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia), a rare but regular wintering species in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, among the cacti in the desert southwest exhibit at ZooAmerica. (Another modern digital image)

That’s it folks. Until next time, adiós amigos.

IN MEMORIAM

J. E. Russel Markert (1912-1984)

Harold B. Morrin (1924-2012)

Steven J. Santner (1948-2021)

April 21, 2020May 7, 2020

I Can’t Take Another Earth Day

And now, a few words from the old watersnake who happens to live down along the creek where last spring’s Earth Day events were held.

Northern Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon)

Hey! You! Yeah You! I heard that there won’t be an Earth Day celebration down here this week. What a ssshame!

Remember how much fun we had last year. All those kids ssscrambling down along the creek bank throwing ssstones and ssscreaming and yelling like they’re gonna sssack a city. I ssshould have had the sssense to ssslither away. But no, I just curled up and played it cool. But sssure enough, one of the little brats found me and bellowed out loud enough for the whole countryside to hear, “SSSNAAAAKE!”

Ah nuts. That’s all it took. Here they come. Poking me with a ssstick. Taunting and ssstabbing. Don’t you know that hurts? What did I ever do to you, you rotten little apes? I’m telling ya, I get no respect.

Think that’s bad? It got worse. Don’t you remember? After a dozen of the runny-nosed monsters had me sssurrounded, one of the brain-dead adults yelled, “…it might be poisonous!”

That’s all it took. The ssstones got hurled my way and the poking with a ssstick became beatings. Those rats tried to kill me! On Earth Day! I ssslid into deep water and barely escaped with my life.

Now I want to tell you a few things—let’s get ’em ssstraight right now. I’m not, nor is any other watersnake in the SSSusquehanna valley, poisonous. Ssso don’t go villainizing me and those like me just because you have a monkey-like fear of us and need a sssocially acceptable reason to exercise your murderous instincts. Yeah, we know all about your manly tall tales of conquest that you ssshamelessly tell your friends and family after you kill a sssnake. Wanna be a hero? Then leave us alone! We and all of the native sssnakes of the SSSusquehanna valley, including the venomous copperheads and Timber Rattlesnakes, are minding our own business and just want to be left alone. Get it? Leave us alone! Don’t beat us with a ssshovel, mow over us, drive your car or truck over us, or ssshoot us. We have it bad enough as it is. You already buggered up most of our homes building your roads, houses, and lawns you know—so have a little respect. And one more thing, we don’t want be part of your pet menagerie. There’s no way we’ll “love you” or want anything to do with you, even if you do imprison us and make us sssubmissive to you for food, you sssick fascists. And that goes for you obsessive collector types too. We know you’re hoarding animals like us and calling your cruel little pet penitentiary a “rescue”. Yeah, we’re wise to that con too.

What’s left of a Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horidus) in a wild area of the Susquehanna valley. It made the fatal mistake of trying to cross the road when a simple-minded sociopath driving an oversize pickup truck was coming by. As you may have guessed, the conscientious driver braked and swerved to hit the snake.

Ssso we’ve heard you won’t be coming down to the creek to terrorize us this year. No Earth Day event, huh. Well good, because I can’t take another Earth Day. Let the sssquirrels and the birds plant the trees, they do a better job than you anyway. Ssstay at home where you belong—watching television or twit-facing your B.F.F. on that magic box you carry around. And if you absolutely feel the urge to be upset by a sssnake in your midst, go visit that neighbor with the “reptile rescue”, I’m sssure he has a cobra or some other non-native sssnake in his collection that really ought to give you worry—especially when it finally escapes that prison.