Category: Favourites
I was walking along a path in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge when I heard lots of rustling behind where I had just come from. I turned back and saw a black snake flopping around on the ground and then all of a sudden it stopped. I raced back with my camera and started taking pictures. It wasn’t until I got close enough that I realized this black racer had ambushed a juvenile copperhead (venomous) and was in the process of eating it! The only way this snake would be able to eat the venomous copperhead without dying is if it managed to get the head into it’s mouth before the snake could bite it, and then suffocate it to death which must have been what the initial rustling was. The next few photos are of the racer consuming the copperhead, an event that to my knowledge has never been documented or photographed before!
An adult copperhead rattlesnake found resting under some old, discarded plywood. Under the same bunch of plywood was a black racer and blue spotted salamanders.
One of the most photographed arches with the “Washer Woman” rock formation in the background. To get this photo I had to wake up very early to drive from Moab to Canyonlands National Park. I had read that hordes of photographers are usually present in the morning so I wanted to make sure I was the first one there, especially seeing as I had no tripod and would have to make one when I got there. Making things more complicated was that my flashlight batteries had died so I had to use the light from the LCD display on my cell phone to make my way along the trail to the arch. I was the first to arrive so I had first choice of where to set up. I found three large branches I propped up, laced together and made a tripod with my coat on top to provide a stable surface to rest my camera on. No doubt I was laughed at by all the ‘professional’ photographers that showed up later with their Gitzo tripods. All that work and I ended up getting this picture hand holding my camera. Clouds on the horizon had initially prevented getting the orange glow on the underside of the arch but 30 minutes later (after everyone else had left) the sun was high enough to get the glow. Even better, was that clouds had come in to interrupt the blue sky making a much more interesting photo. This was one of hundreds I took that morning.
This split boulder sits on top of Lembert Dome.
This male mountain bluebird had just picked an insect off of one of the aspen trees. The scars on the aspen trees are from elk that eat the bark and sap.
Across from Upper Wateron Lake the elk have started grouping up into small herds of 10 or so females with a bull elk trying to isolate the females for mating. As usual the elk headed into the trees for the day before emerging at night to feed.
While this looks like a fierce battle it was actually a mother grizzly wrestling with her 3-4 year old cub. Eventually the mother will drive her cub off as she gets ready to give birth to the next litter.
Owen Slater Photography 