Everglades After Dark (pt. 2)

As the sun set on another muggy day, Noah and I were eager to road cruise again and look for whatever this primordial land was willing to reveal. In a short time we were looking at a gorgeous cottonmouth. These snakes are known for their dramatics, posturing in a coil and gaping their white mouths, but the first cottonmouth on the second night was the closest we got to one doing that.  probably could have gotten this one to gape had I antagonized it, but I don't enjoy antagonizing venomous snakes. I'll annoy a non-venomous species to try to get it in a good posture to photograph, but with any venomous species I'll do no more than the bare minimum. With most of these cottonmouths I was happy with their calm but weary poses and had no need to get them gaping. They looked great in a low-stress stance.

The next one was by far the smallest and also the most pretty. It was a gorgeous snake.

After ushering the second cottonmouth out of the road, we decided to take a moment and shut everything off and let the darkness truly envelope us. Without the noise of the van running or any of our lights on, the Everglades consumed us entirely. These was no noticeable light pollution, road noise, or even air traffic. All we could see, because of cloud cover, was the faint outline of the tree line on each side of the road. And all we could here were the insects, frogs, and nocturnal birds that own the 'glades after the sun sets. It as one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, on par with going dark in Mammoth Caves and seeing a mountain lion up close in the wild. It genuinely took my breath away.

Down the road a it I photographed the first night bird I'd have a chance to on this trip, a black crowned night heron. They are a really cool bird an this was only the second I'd ever seen, so I was plenty happy just to get a mediocre reference shot.

The next snake we found crossing the road was a juvenile corn snake, a little larger than the one we'd found the day before but still a little fella.

Perhaps the coolest wildlife encounter of the night, to me, was a relatively common species but something I'd wanted to see in the wild since I was very young. It was a bark scorpion, species Centruroides gracilis. I'd for some reason expected the scorpions in Florida to be small but this was a large enough arachnid to be quite impressive in person. As someone who has a tendency to fall in love with some of the most widely disliked an often feared animals, I was thrilled to be looking at me first wild scorpion. It wasn't what we'd expected to find but, in retrospect it wasn't at all surprising. It was odd that we only saw one other.

Though the snake diversity remained unexceptional the overall species count had improved on our second night cruising. We'd be out again the next night doing the same thing. But first, we had a fish we wanted to catch. 

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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