An Indigo Snake Named Janisse

Guest post by Dirk Stevenson, plus.

GUEST POST BY DIRK STEVENSON

Note from Janisse: Back on the first day of spring I missed an outing with my biologist pals Frankie Snow and Dirk Stevenson. Dirk sent this report.

I want to tell you about my field trip with Frankie last Wednesday. The highlight of the trip was the capture—well, recapture—of your namesake indigo snake!

The beautiful indigo named Janisse. Photo by Greg Brashear.

Janisse is a good data-collection snake.  We have now found her in three of the last four survey years. An indigo survey year runs November-March, the time when the snakes are invariably at or near tortoise burrows or similar cool-season refugia. We’ve found Janisse in 2020-21; in 2022-23; and in 2023-24.

Janisse was already an adult when she was first found on 25 Feb 2021.  She was 5 feet, 4 inches. That’s 60 inches. She had grown 4.5 inches when recaptured on 3 Dec 2022.   A 68-inch female indigo is a big’un, since they seldom reach or exceed 6 feet in length. It’s the males that become gigantic. 

So, this Wednesday, late morning, we found her sun-sittin’, curled content, basking under new-leaved huckleberries on the roof of a tortoise burrow.  This is standard operating behavior for a gestating female. They covet warmth during the day.

We measured her, and apparently she reached her size maxima at 68.5 inches—she hasn’t grown since her last capture. She weighed 3.5 pounds.

Indeed her plump form (note the visible interspaces between the scales) tells us that Janisse will slink down an old sand tunnel soon, later this May, to deposit a clump of large eggs.

A veteran serpent of this longleaf pine ridge, Janisse has survived extended droughts, tropical storms, and many long looks from hungry red-tailed hawks.   Along the way she has suppered on countless rats and frogs and the occasional eastern diamondback rattlesnake. Now close to 10 years old, she is doing well, and that fact made Frankie and me very happy.  We had a wonderful spring walk.

BIO

Dirk is a zoologist, writer and educator with over 25 years of experience working in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States. He owns Altamaha Environmental Consulting.

Longtime naturalist friends Frankie Snow and Dirk Stevenson with the indigo they named Janisse. | Photo by Greg Brashear.

Practice Radical Sustainability

On the Farm

Plums are ripe at Red Earth Farm. So are nectarines. We love swinging by a tree and eating a ripe fruit standing under the tall cerulean sky. The birds, however, like to take a few pecks out of a fruit and leave the rest to rot. So a few days ago Raven picked all the good fruit that remained. We’re eating a lot of plums.

Temperatures have climbed into the 90s here in the south of Georgia. We didn’t get rain for a week, and the ground was getting plenty dry. Dust would boil up behind any car that passed on the dirt road. Yesterday thunderstorms rolled through, luckily, and they were mild as thunderstorms go. The rain gauge registered 1/8 inch, not much, but we are glad for it.

The Bat Girls from DNR came on Monday to install the bat monitor, and they took it down on Friday. This is the fourth or fifth year in a row that DNR has monitored bats on the farm. They often find an endangered species or two. I can’t wait to write a post about their findings.

All the animals are fine. The two ducks love the tall grass in the yard. They crouch in it as if hiding. A mother hen came out from under the barn with three chicks in tow this week. The 8 cows, the mule, and the 4 horses ran out of salt, and Raven remembered to get salt blocks when he was at the feed store two days ago, so I’m watching the animals gather at the lick.

Gnat season is upon us, and if I don’t put fly masks on the horses in the mornings, their eyes get infected. I have to take the fly masks off at night. That adds 20-30 minutes a day to the farm chores.

I’ve been rotating the horses between pastures so they can take advantage of the summer grass. Two of them, in fact, have been grazing in the yard. I had been noticing that they didn’t like to come through a gate between the triangle pasture and the barnyard. They would dash through. One evening I went to shut the gate, and as I wrapped the metal chain around the metal gate, I got a dose of electroshock therapy. The voltage made my teeth rattle in my head. I was addled but I had to get the gate shut, so I reached the chain around again. This time I actually heard a loud zap as the current hit me. An electrical shock is very unnerving. I felt foggy for the next few hours.

Raven went out the next morning with his tester and found a wire had shorted underground. He got it fixed. Tonight I had to fasten the same gate, and I did it without incident.

Then I came inside and ate a few plums.

Phenology

White ibis have been roosting in the swamp to the east of us. In the mornings when I am sitting on the deck with a coffee, I watch them rise out of the swamp and fly westward. Sometimes they go off in twos and threes, but there will be a moment in which 25-35 of them rise from the trees.

They’re an elegant bird with long legs and a long bill. Each wing is tipped with black feathers. Their flight is a beautiful thing.

One morning this week a perfect V of perfect ibis passed directly overhead. They were only 30 feet or so off the ground, right above me. I could hear the rustle of their long white feathers as they passed. I could feel the ibis wind. I’ve stood in long lines to be blessed by holy people, and nothing comes close to the feeling I had when the ibis passed over, and I gladly get up before sunrise hoping to feel that again.

Kickstarter Update

The Kickstarter to launch Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing just hit $20k. Now over 400 people have invested in a copy of the book. It’s a good book, and I’m happy to think of it in the hands of people it may help.

Many of you have already ordered a copy of the book, and I thank you so much. I’m happy to think of the book in your hands.

The campaign closes in 48 hours, which is going to be sometime Friday evening.

What I’m Reading

To be honest, I’m reading Craft & Current out loud into a microphone in a hot closet with my clothes hanging around my head. There is nothing like reading aloud for finding errors. Today I noticed that Charlotte Bronte’s last name needs those two tiny dots above the e.

I found out that’s called a diaeresis. Diaresis = a mark placed over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable. How did I not know that before now?

And Big Thanks

I wrote an edgy piece on street drugs a few weeks ago. It was called “We Were Wrong About Pot.” Afterwards, kind Matthew Bagshaw sent me 4 mg of Naloxone HCl Nasal Spray for a “known or suspected opioid overdose.” An organization was handing out Naloxone at Matthew’s farmers market, and he snagged a two-pack for me. I am so grateful. I hope I never have to use it.

I’m grateful for plum season, for white ibis, for rain, for bats, for green pastures, and for every tree that’s alive. I’m grateful that somebody named an indigo snake after me, and that somewhere deep in a tortoise burrow a few baby indigos are learning their way around the world.

I’m grateful you’re here.