Frog is on the menu

[Nancy Bell]

I went out to the garden to smell the flowers and found this Southern Black Racer dining on a big frog. I looked on the Internet and believe this is a juvenile snake with those white markings on it. It took the snake over 30 minutes to slowly gulp this frog down its throat, head first. Once done the snake started to aggressively move towards me. It "rattled" its tail, but there is no sound to it. Plus it flicked its tongue out repeatedly. I backed up to try to keep it in focus, but the snake seemed happy enough then and slithered under the porch into the darkness. Very fascinating to watch! Our neighborhood frog expect, a delightful 9 year old, said the frog was a Bull Frog.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 100-400 II @ 360mm, tripod, 1/500, f9, ISO 1250.

[John Robinson]

Hi Nancvy- now its a dead bullfrog !!
Always makes a good shot unless you are squeamish. Personally I would take a lot of the OOF stuff on the right- putting the frog in the centre. Just my view.
Good stuff
John

[Jonathan Ashton]

I see what John refers to but I lkek the composition, instead of cropping I think I would make the paler buts of wood chips darker and then they would not draw the eye away. It seems alien to me to even think of having snakes in the garden, I doubt if there is a snake at all on the Wirral peninsula where I live.

[Nancy Bell]

No snakes? Were snakes ever there? Is the frog population out of control? The mouse population? Lots of snakes here and I am very happy for them to prey upon the mice and moles. But I ALWAYS watch where I walk since several species are very poisonous.

SO back to the image. To tame those bright bits of wood I would try Burn, but that seems to just add gray. How does one darkened using a real color, such as a brown or tan and still keep the texture? Clone with Color only adds a weird type of color.

P.S. I just did a Google search for Wirral snakes. Couldn't really find anything definitive on snakes there but I did see mention of fairies in the large Oaks! :S3:

[Adhika Lie]

Beautiful Nancy. Like Jonathan, I like the composition here, too. I will use curves and some quick masking action on the wood chips to tame it down. I am so glad to know that you shot this at 360mm. Snakes make my legs shake.

[Warren Spreng]

Cool shot Nancy, you can't help think though "What a way to go!" Even though a good bit of the snake is OOF it still conveys the texture and power in that body!

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. I'll try curves on those bright wood chips. A snake with his mouth full doesn't seem very dangerous. But I was glad to give him space to eat at his own pace.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Great capture Nancy...Racers are very beautiful snakes...in all my years photographing frogs I have never once encountered a frog getting eaten by a snake, although I have seen many Garter Snakes and Water Snakes with large lumps in their bellies that I assume were frogs. Many young snakes will wiggle the tips of their tails to mimic rattlesnakes in hopes of scaring off potential predators.