Rubber Boa

[Dan Brown]

This capture was made this weekend in the Sierra at about 6000ft elevation. He/she is about 14 inches long and very docile. The most amazing thing to me is that I found him/her at 10pm crawlling across a gravel road, temp about 50 degrees!:eek:

Camera Model: NIKON D300, tripod mounted, electronic cable release
Shutter speed: 1/3 sec
Aperture: 11
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: -1
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 100
Lens: 105mm f/2.8D
Focal length: 105mm
Focal length: 157mm (in 35mm film)
AF mode: AF-S

[Katherine Enns]

Being reptilian, if it's as cold as that, they can be very slow all right. This color looks as though it could be a juvenile, from this springs hibernacula but you say it was 14 inches, so I could be wrong. Very nice capture, especially the face. This is really a beautiful species of snake. It looks like you put it somewhere where it couldnt get squished!

kat

[Arthur Morris]

Love the soft light and the SH of the face. Too much room at the top for me, thus the cropped repost. Do you have any more to the left?

Lots of questions: Assuming that you did not photograph this in the dark, what did you do with the snake for the evening?

Is this a set-up?

What's with the -1 EC???

[Julie Kenward]

Well, Dan, considering I'm a girl and that's a snake, I think you made it look about as good as you could have! :eek:

I like the DOF and the way the two main colors seem to compliment each other. Love that you got a good look at the eye (nice HA as they say up in the Avian forum!)

I'm also interested in why the -1 EV. It sure doesn't look overly sunny or bright in the image.

[Alfred Forns]

Agree with comments .... can add I sure like the precise point of focus, texture and overall feel ... just made a snake look good !!!

[Dan Brown]

Love the soft light and the SH of the face. Too much room at the top for me, thus the cropped repost. Do you have any more to the left?

Thanks all! Artie, Yes, I do have room on the left. I will recrop with your suggestions for a repost.

Lots of questions: Assuming that you did not photograph this in the dark, what did you do with the snake for the evening?

I just happened to have an empty ice chest with me, (my sisters ice chest:eek:) dropped him/her in and then shot the next morning early, releasing the critters before 9am very near where I found it.

Is this a set-up?

Oh yea! I shot with and without flash, with and without a 3T diopter, on this Mule's Ear leaf and on a big slab of pine bark:D.


What's with the -1 EC???

I chimped the 0 EC shots and didn't think the snake was dark enough, so -1 it was.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Dan, Thanks for the info above. All is good except this: "I chimped the 0 EC shots and didn't think the snake was dark enough, so -1 it was."

This is not the best way to go as it results in files with less data and color info. Best to expose to the right (without flashing highlights) and never care about how the image looks on the back of the camera....

[Dan Brown]

Thanks Artie. I will remember that!

[Katherine Enns]

So that is why it was so tightly coiled. I get it, now. I am new to this site, and a biologist, so I have to ask if this sort of thing is really common? A Charina rubber boa juvenile found in cold condition at 10 PM, so it was slow enough to not evade capture, is then placed in a plastic chest with poor air quality and no thermal protection over night so it could have the best of light some 9 hours later? A difference of a couple of degrees can make a huge difference to snakes. They absorbe a lot through thier skins. The fact that it could be moved around like a prop didnt give the impression of stress? I am not saying you killed it, or anything, but I certainly hope it was a warm day after that, and that the animal was placed well away from the road where it was trying to get thermal relief when it was captured. Snakes often chose, disasterously, especailly juveniles, to try and get warm from road surfaces, as they hold warmth longer than rock under road side vegetation....

EDITED to say instead: I am told there is a discussion on this site about putting subjects at risk. Perhaps I should have just posted there? Dan, maybe you just didnt realize that this is a stress pose and that this species is normally wicked fast, except when very cold. Putting it in a previously used plastic or metal cooler over night, even if it was warm inside, would not have been good unless it was well ventilated. And more than a couple of hours is a long time for a juvenile to remain in a stressed cold condition. I dont want to offend people here, but doesnt anyone else think this is too much interference with a juvenile? BTW this is an endangered species in Canada.


katherine enns

[Dan Brown]

So that is why it was so tightly coiled. I get it, now. I am new to this site, and a biologist, so I have to ask if this sort of thing is really common? A Charina rubber boa juvenile found in cold condition at 10 PM, so it was slow enough to not evade capture, is then placed in a plastic chest with poor air quality and no thermal protection over night so it could have the best of light some 9 hours later? A difference of a couple of degrees can make a huge difference to snakes. They absorbe a lot through thier skins. The fact that it could be moved around like a prop didnt give the impression of stress? I am not saying you killed it, or anything, but I certainly hope it was a warm day after that, and that the animal was placed well away from the road where it was trying to get thermal relief when it was captured. Snakes often chose, disasterously, especailly juveniles, to try and get warm from road surfaces, as they hold warmth longer than rock under road side vegetation....

EDITED to say instead: I am told there is a discussion on this site about putting subjects at risk. Perhaps I should have just posted there? Dan, maybe you just didnt realize that this is a stress pose and that this species is normally wicked fast, except when very cold. Putting it in a previously used plastic or metal cooler over night, even if it was warm inside, would not have been good unless it was well ventilated. And more than a couple of hours is a long time for a juvenile to remain in a stressed cold condition. I dont want to offend people here, but doesnt anyone else think this is too much interference with a juvenile? BTW this is an endangered species in Canada.


katherine enns

Thanks for your concern for the snake Katherine and I won't debate you about this except to say that the ice chest didn't have ice in it! and was warm and that my experiences with this species are that it is definately not a "wicked fast" species IMO! Racers, whip snakes and coachwhips are fast but these guys are on the slow side in my experiences and very docile and easy to pick up. This guy was trying to crawl off the setup and when I retrieved him, placing him back, he coiled this way:). Oh, and I probably saved him from sure death on the road that night. As for the release, yes the sun was up, I placed him half way under a bush well away from the road in the morning sun very near where he had been headed and waited while he made his way safely into the cover.

[Arthur Morris]

Katherine, As a biologist, perhaps you can answer these two questions:

1-Was the snake not likely to get colder still as the night progresses?

2-Was there not a good chance that the snake would have been run over by a vehicle?

[Arthur Morris]

ps to Katherine,

Can you confirm that biologists place several to many snakes in a single cloth bag for hours or longer while they are conducting "research"?

[Katherine Enns]

Hi Arthur and Dan, I am leaving for the field at the moment, but I am glad you have asked these questions, I will try to answer or comment quickly... I knew the chest didnt have ice. The temp in the chest may have been warm, thats good, but the air circulation possibly not great. It would have been stressful in any case, and this is a juvenile. They use roads, esp juvs for warmth, as roads retain heat at night. Its a problem. Some of my records for this species are skins on roads. Dan is right. Also right not as fast as racers but still highly mobile. Is likely that as the road cooled, if the snake actually didnt get killed on the road, it would have moved off and found a depressional area with warm gravels and some vegetation cover. The cover itself can keep the air temp a couple of degrees higher over the night than the road surface or any other opening. Thermal cover measurement show as much as 10 degrees C differences, especially toward fall.

Yes a very good chance a snake would get killed as I have mentioned. But captured and held in a non ventilated ice chest is not great either.

Do bios place snakes in bags... Most of us take a gps record and a photo, write some notes and move on. We dont usually collect them in bags... Old Stebbins and his students may have collected a few like that for destructive collection in the old days.

Thanks for at least answering my note. I appreciate it. Please dont keep reptiles in chests over night. The reason it could not make a run for it was its level of quiescence, which was undoubtedly a response to its stress level and thermal condition.

I can write some more if you like but i have to get birding here its already 530

kat

[Katherine Enns]

I should also have said thanks for putting the snake back in a safe area, that makes a difference, and possibly what should have happened is move the animal to a warm south facing sheltered site WELL off road, take what ever photos you can with a flash or what ever you need and leave it alone after that.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for your response Kathie. Folks who do capture reptiles and hold them for photography have learned that they need to be kept in a well ventilated containter.

I understand that snakes get heat from the roads at night but my point was that as the night got colder, the snake would have gotten colder road heat or not.

Lastly, a few years ago at most a NG photographer working in Africa or SA showed several images of biologists with bagfuls of snakes and I am 99% sure that that is a common practice today. As it turns out, they were working with one species of poisonous snake and the mimic species. A famous herpetologist reached into a bag to grab what he thought was one of the mimic species. Oooops. He died the next day.

[Dan Brown]

[quote=Arthur Morris;283310]Thanks for your response Kathie. Folks who do capture reptiles and hold them for photography have learned that they need to be kept in a well ventilated containter.

Thanks Artie, the chest was a standard 18x18x25 inch size. Thanks again Katherine for your concern regarding the snake.

[Katherine Enns]

I understand that snakes get heat from the roads at night but my point was that as the night got colder, the snake would have gotten colder road heat or not.


Lastly, a few years ago at most a NG photographer working in Africa or SA showed several images of biologists with bagfuls of snakes and I am 99% sure that that is a common practice today. As it turns out, they were working with one species of poisonous snake and the mimic species. A famous herpetologist reached into a bag to grab what he thought was one of the mimic species. Oooops. He died the next day.

Arthur, thanks again for the discussion! I am back from my little fledgling survey, and I can answer you in more detail now. Sure they get colder. But they can move to find microclimate pockets and cover that allow them to maintain some body heat. If they dont get run over first.

Also, I should say its not just the temperature alone. Its the lack of escape terrain, lack of cover, lack of food, confinement in poor air quality, etc. its just plain stressfull. Is it fatal? No. Is it harmfull over the life of the snake? No. I am not a bleeding heart or anything, but I have to ask is it absolutely necessary to subject a juvenile boa to possibly 8 hours of unpleasant confinement so the photographer can have soft morning light? Are we supposed to be not harming or increasing risk to natural subjects? From reading here, I gathered this was a common philosophy...

Regarding the 11 1/2 foot long cotton sack full of snakes from the southern hemisphere.... I would say that it would be only a few professional biologists working in NA now who are collecting still and certainly not bag fulls of snakes, :) at least not in the last 10 to 20 years.

In Africa or South America there may be someone working on a collection program sure and that is the sort of stuff that makes it into the "nature" programs on TV. Believe me, most of field biology is not as depicted on the tube. I can describe it to you, but grab a coffee, first. Its long days and nights, cold, wet, physically challenging, lots of mosquitoes, sort of like photography!

The average herp specialist working any where in the field today takes field records, as many as they can get, without destroying habitat or putting individuals or populations at risk. Also, in our part of the world there are regulations that control what we can and cant do. In Canada its against the federal law to collect or even disturb a listed species. This includes Charina bottae here in BC because its at the limit of its range here, among other things. So "do not touch" is the rule, here in BC. I am not sure about California law, but it may be the same there. To collect even a non-listed species, we require permits from the govt. The permits and the results of our work are scrutinized too.

Just because you see something in the popular media does not make it common practice. We watch the Discovery Channel same as everyone else and we sometimes see some breathtaking practices taking place, but we always greatly admire the photography.

I dont want to come across as the maven of snake trauma prevention, here. Dan did no overall harm to the darn snake and he got a great photograph, AND he possibly saved the life of a dumb juvenile that mighta got squished, as I said in my first post. Still, if it were me, I would have used a flash and found a south facing pocket of cover about 100 meters away for the little guy to carry on.

Kat

[Katherine Enns]

[quote=Arthur Morris;283310]Thanks for your response Kathie. Folks who do capture reptiles and hold them for photography have learned that they need to be kept in a well ventilated containter.

Thanks Artie, the chest was a standard 18x18x25 inch size. Thanks again Katherine for your concern regarding the snake.


Hi Dan, I hope you will read my post above in response to Arthurs questions, because in it I say you didnt do any serious harm, but I ask is it necessary, and I discuss a bit of what most biologists will tell you about stressing a captive. We can not collect in BC without a permit. If I were to start collecting this species here, without a lengthy permitting process and a whole lot of red tape, I could get into considerable do do. Dont know about California, though.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Katherine, We could stretch this out into a full blown debate but I am opting not to do that here as it has been done elsewhere on BPN (See threads below for two). As a photographer, I take offense when biolgists point accusatory fingers at photographers while ignoring or denying any harm done by biologists.

See these related threads: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33031 and http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33031

And please do not tell me about Canada. I watched researchers on Bonavanture grabbing gannets off the nest by putting a wire noose around their necks and then yanking them up.

In this case you admit that the photographer may very well have saved the creature's life while doing no harm. Finding a cooperative snake is a rare, rare occurence; it is not as if photographers are going around searching for cold snakes.

Respectfully.

[Arthur Morris]

ps; You ask, is it neccessary? I ask is all the disturbance done by biologists and researchers necessary?

[Katherine Enns]

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate them and agree with all that you say, especially where you are objecting to techniques that are now illegal to use. You are quite right. Biologists, especially ornithologist of the past were incredibly destructive to birds. Most of them shot thier way through the bird fauna of entire regions from 1840 to 1970. As a young student I had to memorize thier characters from skins. Collegues of mine in thier 50's were trained with shot gun techniques and contributed skin collections. Fortunately that part of thier careers are in the past. This is probably WHY we have so many regulations in place now, and the permitting, to make sure this does not happen any more, and that populations are not put at risk. If its still happening some where and you know about it please write to me, and to the Federal Government of Canada. If they had permits I would be surprised.

I deliberately did not bring up the cases of photographers harming birds, either. As you point out that has been discussed. Ligature is not even in the same league as sequestering a juvenile snake till dawn. I dont think either the practice of ligature, bags of snakes or some of the harm photographers have done are even part of the same conversation.

I hope I was clear that I don't find too much fault with Roberts actions, perhaps he just was not aware that a cooler overnight is not a great environment for a juvenile snake. I KNOW he meant no harm at all. I still felt justified in suggesting maybe take the photo of the cold snake and then putting it somewhere safe might be better for the animal all round.

With respect.

Kat