Good morning from ms Pretzel! 🥨🐍
The best way to encounter a Western Screech-Owl is to use your ears. Listen at night for a string of hollow, high tooting notes with the rhythm of a bouncing ball. They may occur in or near towns, and they are vocal for much of the year, not just the spring and summer. During daytime they are hard to spot, but they may become the targets of small songbirds that form mobbing groups to get the owl to move away. If you hear a commotion made by chickadees, nuthatches, and other small birds, it’s worth taking a careful look for an owl or hawk hidden nearby.
Good morning! Floods may develop slowly over time, or quickly with no warning as in a flash flood. Flash floods often have a dangerous wall of roaring water carrying rocks, mud and other debris. Anywhere it rains, it can flood. Be aware of flood hazards(link is external) no matter where you live or work, but especially if you are in low-lying areas, near water, behind a levee or downstream from a dam. Even small streams, gullies, creeks, culverts, dry streambeds or low-lying ground that appear harmless in dry weather can flood.
Good morning! 🐍💩Once the meal is reduced to poop, the snake can get rid of it through an anal opening, or cloaca, which is Latin for ‘sewer.’ This opening can be found at the end of a snake’s belly and beginning of its tail; unsurprisingly, the feces are the same width as the snake’s body. A snake will use the same opening to defecate, urinate, mate, and lay eggs—now that’s multi-purpose!
Good morning! 🐍Western diamondbacks are pit vipers. This means that they have a heat sensing pit (loreal pit) located behind each nostril that can detect differences in temperature, sometimes differences that are only a fraction of a degree apart. The heat given off by an animal is detected by the snake helping it to determine predator from prey. Western diamondbacks are poor climbers. When threatened, they usually coil and rattle to warn aggressors. They are one of the more aggressive rattlesnake species in the US in the way that they stand their ground when confronted by a foe. If rattling does not work, then the snake will strike in defense.These snakes can move their rattle back and forth 60 times per second. #westerndiamonbackrattlesnake
