It was hard to choose just one photo to upload today. I snapped some closeups of a beautiful great horned owl (a permanent resident at the nature center), a pair of tiger swallowtail butterflies on the bank of the river (one crawled around on my hand for a bit) and this scaly guy.
I’m normally very careful when hiking around by the river, and today was no different. It was hot out and I knew there could be snakes around, so I was making sure to scan both sides of the path… right up to the point when I became distracted by some turkeys on the other side of the trail – that’s when I heard hissing and rattling right by my foot! I jumped, the snake jumped, we went in opposite directions and fortunately that was the extent of the drama. Phew!
So, since this guy nearly gave me a heart attack, he gets to be the photo of the day. The rest of the photos are at my Flickr account if anyone wants to see owls and butterflies.
