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I saw this snake while birding last week. It was the first time I’ve ever seen this species. I believe it’s a Western yellow-bellied Racer. ( Coluber constrictor Mormon)
They eat rats, mice, small rabbits, frongs, toads, turtles, lizards, and even other snakes. Some climb trees to eat bird eggs.
Young snakes have blotches on their backs so are sometimes confused for other species like Kingsnakes. As they mature they lose the blotches and become solid colors like black, green, brown, or blue on the top with yellow, white, or tan belly. They can grow up to 5 feet long, but the record was a little over 6 feet.
This one was smallish at just over 2 feet in length.
Why are snakes so good at rapping? Because they rap around their prey!
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Birdhouses!
Two years ago there was a wild fire in Washoe County, NV. It was pretty devasting destroying 14 residences, 22 outbuildings, two commercial buildings, and 5,800+ acres of private, state, and federal lands.
Davis Creek Regional Park has partially reopened. Not all trails are completely opened yet, and camping remains closed.
Birds, and wildlife are still thriving there. Last week I was birding there and to my delight saw someone or many talented people have used the felled, and cut trees to create birdhouses.
There was a pair of Western Bluebirds setting up house in one, or maybe two birdhouses.
They were seen trying out two different birdhouses while I was there.
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Last month about a week before Thanksgiving I went on a quick road trip to Las Vegas/Henderson with a girl-friend. She was wanting to see her parents who live in Vegas, and I was wanting to go to Henderson which is just 20 minutes south of downtown Vegas to do some birding. So we got a plan together and went. While she was hanging out with her parents I was birding at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. I was hoping to see the Long-tailed Duck that is back this winter, alas, I did not see it, but I had a fantastic meeting with a Greater Roadrunner.
I was walking up a path and turned a corner and there it was standing in the middle of the path. I stopped. It jumped back and looked at me. There we stood eyeing each other up. When it was apparent it wasn’t going to flee and be flighty I started making photographs of it. After a minute it approached me! I backed up to keep it in my focal range. It was too close!!! Such a problem to have right? 😂 This profile is the best image I made showing its colorful skin behind its eye. The colors say Southwest to me.
I can’t tell if it is a male or female. I do know it’s an adult though. It stayed on the path walking back and forth in front of me, and crossing the path from side to side for nearly 5 minutes! I have quite a few images of it. I think it must have had a nest nearby guarding it perhaps? Anyway, I figured I’d better get moving and let the Roadrunner get back to doing whatever it does. I thanked it for such a lovely encounter and as quietly as I could walked up the path then when the Roadrunner thought I was too close it darted into the bushes.
That was only the 3rd Roadrunner I’ve ever seen and by far the best encounter with one ever!
For a generation of Americans, the familiar “beep, beep” of Warner Brothers’ cartoon Roadrunner was the background sound of Saturday mornings. Despite the cartoon character’s perennial victories over Wile E. Coyote, real-life coyotes present a real danger. The mammals can reach a top speed of 43 miles an hour—more than twice as fast as roadrunners.
Roadrunners have evolved a range of adaptations to deal with the extremes of desert living. Like seabirds, they secrete a solution of highly concentrated salt through a gland just in front of each eye, which uses less water than excreting it via their kidneys and urinary tract. Moisture-rich prey including mammals and reptiles supply them otherwise-scarce water in their diet. Both chicks and adults flutter the unfeathered area beneath the chin (gular fluttering) to dissipate heat.
Greater Roadrunners eat poisonous prey, including venomous lizards and scorpions, with no ill effect, although they’re careful to swallow horned lizards head-first with the horns pointed away from vital organs. Roadrunners can also kill and eat rattlesnakes, often in tandem with another roadrunner: as one distracts the snake by jumping and flapping, the other sneaks up and pins its head, then bashes the snake against a rock. If it’s is too long to swallow all at once, a roadrunner will walk around with a length of snake still protruding from its bill, swallowing it a little at a time as the snake digests.
Based on banding records, the oldest roadrunner was at least 7 years old.
Roadrunners hold a special place in Native American and Mexican legends and belief systems. The birds were revered for their courage, strength, speed, and endurance. The roadrunner’s distinctive X-shaped footprint—with two toes pointing forward and two backward—are used as sacred symbols by Pueblo tribes to ward off evil. The X shape disguises the direction the bird is heading, and is thought to prevent evil spirits from following.
Isn’t that folklore about its X shaped footprint interesting! I didn’t know that until I read the fun facts. 😊
I hope you all have a lovely week-end. Beep, beep!
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October 31, 2025 was Nevada’s 161st year of Statehood. The celebrations started early in October with many events scheduled throughout the month leading up to the big Birthday Bash on November 1st.
November 1st started really early with Hot Air Balloonist rolling in at 6am to get their balloons ready for an 8AM lift-off. I was there.
I usually pick one balloon and stick with them until they lift off. This year I watched the crew that owns this balloon laying flat on the ground.
The crew pulled up to their spot on the street then they laid out a huge tarp, next they roll out the balloon. The crew is named Cloud Couture Crew. The Balloon’s name is Cloud Couture. It’s piloted by Eric Diamond.
Next they hook up the basket, and gas, check all the lines, then they turn on a huge fan. See it next to the basket on the left? They use the fan to fill the balloon with air. The best part is when they have enough air in the balloon to start heating it up and lifting the balloon! Whoosh! It was warm standing here once they had the flame going.
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A few weeks ago a pair of Rufous Hummingbirds returned to my backyard feeder. They’ve been chasing off the Black-chinned and having skirmishes all day everyday since their return.
I’m beginning to think I need to add another Shepard’s hook and feeder so the territorial squabbling gets better.
Here’s what I think is a female perched on top of the hook claiming possession. She lands here on and off all day long letting the other Hummingbirds know this is her feeder. You can see a little bit of her Gorget on her throat.
I could be wrong about her sex as it could also be an immature female/ male. If you know which it is please let me know.
Fun Facts:
The Rufous Hummingbird is a common visitor to hummingbird feeders. It is extremely territorial at all times of year, attacking any visiting hummingbird, including much larger species. They’ve been seen chasing chipmunks away from their nests.
The Rufous Hummingbird makes one of the longest migratory journeys of any bird in the world, as measured by body size. At just over 3 inches long, its roughly 3,900-mile movement (one-way) from Alaska to Mexico is equivalent to 78,470,000 body lengths. In comparison, the 13-inch-long Arctic Tern’s one-way flight of about 11,185 mi is only 51,430,000 body lengths. (AAB)
During their long migrations, Rufous Hummingbirds make a clockwise circuit of western North America each year. They move up the Pacific Coast in late winter and spring, reaching Washington and British Columbia by May. As early as July they may start south again, traveling down the chain of the Rocky Mountains. People first realized this pattern after examining detailed field notes and specimens, noting the birds’ characteristic dates of arrival on each part of the circuit.
The Rufous Hummingbird has an excellent memory for location, no doubt helping it find flowers from day to day, or even year to year. Some birds have been seen returning from migration and investigating where a feeder had been the previous year, even though it had since been moved.
The Rufous Hummingbird breeds as far north as southeastern Alaska – the northernmost breeding range of any hummingbird in the world. Of the western hummingbirds that occasionally show up in the east, the Rufous Hummingbird is the most frequent.
Rufous Hummingbirds, like most other hummingbirds, beat their wings extremely fast to be able to hover in place. The wingbeat frequency of Rufous Hummingbirds has been recorded at 52–62 wingbeats per second.
The Rufous Hummingbird is not a colonially nesting species; however, there have been reports from Washington state that have 20 or more Rufous Hummingbird nests only a few yards apart in the same tree. (From the BNA)
Hummingbirds are hard to catch, but there are records of Rufous Hummingbirds being caught by a large flycatcher (Brown-crested Flycatcher) and by a frog.
The oldest recorded Rufous Hummingbird was a female, and at least 8 years, 11 months old when she was recaught and rereleased during banding operations in British Columbia in 2004.
I’ve been slower to your blogs this week as I’m visiting with family, and I will be for the next several days, but I’ll catch up!
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Some of you may recall that He-Man and I took a Cruise to Alaska on board the Quantum of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Ship earlier this month. I thought I’d start sharing our trip with photos of our stateroom .
We were sailing out of the Port of Seattle so we flew up a day before our cruise departed. We stayed in the north end of town in a Comfort Inn & Suites. The room and hotel were nice, the neighborhood…a little sketchy, but we felt safe enough to walk to the nearby stores and a restaurant for dinner. We just pulled our city street awareness spidy senses out of the archives and stayed alert while walking.
This was the view from our room of downtown Seattle, and Mt. Rainier way in the distance on the left just as the city lights were coming on for the evening.
That parking lot is car dealer spare lot we think.
We took an Uber to the port after checking out of the hotel. Getting through security and checking in with Royal Caribbean was a breeze. Our stateroom wasn’t quite ready so we headed up to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch. I haven’t got any photos of that sorry!
Then we headed to Deck 12 mid-ship to our stateroom hide-away for our departure. We had a stateroom with a balcony on the port side of the ship. The images in the gallery are our main stateroom and view of the balcony, one closet, we had two closets, the bathroom, the big bed…bigger than our Queen at home and there was storage in a cupboard above the bed, the vanity I used for applying my makeup, and over the course of the cruise our Stateroom Attendant left us 4 towel animals. My favorites were the bear, and elephant.
Views from our stateroom balcony-the busy port where people were being dropped off to get onboard, and the port crew loading the luggage, food, and all the things we’d need for the week, and the Seattle Skyline from our balcony on Deck 12 shortly after we left the port.
Circadianreflections Blog 
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