This lunch hour I saw the smallest northern water snake I’ve seen yet at Cutler Pond. It was about the length of a garter snake, and only a little big bigger around than one of those — maybe 5/8 inches diameter, certainly less than half as big around as one of the bigger ones I was seeing in July. I hadn’t seen any of them at all in August and was beginning to think I had forgotten how to look for them, but this one caught my eye even though it was holding perfectly still. I wonder if this one is the young of this year — if so they must grow pretty fast, but this year’s baby Canada geese are lots bigger than this guy — or if it’s a year or two old.
One of the next few people behind me on the path turned out to be the guy who had first pointed out two water snakes to me two years ago. He hadn’t seen this one. He turns out to work for another group in my company, a product we acquired 2 1/2 or 3 years ago. He asked me if I knew about plants as well as snakes, and then asked me if I recognized poison ivy. I was a little surprised that he didn’t know it, but maybe not, because he speaks English with a non-native accent that I couldn’t identify. There’s plenty of poison ivy to point out around Cutler Park, so he ought to be able to recognize it by now!