{"id":191,"date":"2004-04-26T12:25:17","date_gmt":"2004-04-26T12:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/2004\/04\/snake-season\/"},"modified":"2004-04-26T12:25:17","modified_gmt":"2004-04-26T12:25:17","slug":"snake-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/2004\/04\/26\/snake-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Snake Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the past four days, I have already seen 3 snakes. One I spotted on the road, smashed (most likely when it was sunning itself) and attracting flies. I saw two yesterday in Saga-ken. The first one I saw when I was visiting Kannon no taki (Kannon waterfall) in Nanayama-mura (Seven mountain village). I jumped over a rock, and it quickly slithered away under some dead branches. Not feeling quite Irwin enough, I decided not to reach in the tangled foliage and to let it be. Instead, I checked out the awesome waterfalls. If you are passing through Saga-ken, this place is worth a visit.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"fullsnake.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/archives\/fullsnake.jpg\" width=\"741\" height=\"254\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nAnyhow, Kuniko spotted this snake (at Kashibaru Shikken, or Saga Marshlands, North of the Nagasaki Expressway on a small road that shortcuts the 323 toward Nanayama. if you can make it here around August, you should be able to see a beautiful flower called the Sagisou that looks like a bird in flight. this is a prime wetland habitat, a rare find in Japan and the biodiversity is much more apparent and colorful than the vernal pools of Santa Barbara), that remained absolutely still, well camoflauged among the dried foliage. I was able to get really close to it, and finally learned how to use the macros function on my digicam (thanks for the prodding, Justin):<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"snakemid.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/archives\/snakemid.jpg\" width=\"576\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nKuniko thought it was dead, and so I was obligated to show her otherwise. I grabbed its tail, and it whipped its body two feet away from me in a split second. After I grabbed it again, it started rattling the dried leaves with the tip of its tail in the manner of a rattle snake, and then bolted into a well concealed rathole. I don&#8217;t think this snake was poisonous, but can&#8217;t say for sure since I was not bitten.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"snakecloseup.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/archives\/snakecloseup.jpg\" width=\"576\" height=\"428\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nAccording to the <a href=\"http:\/\/village.infoweb.ne.jp\/~fwic4591\/snake\/ejaphebi.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Japanese snake guide<\/a>, this appears to be a Japanese four-lined snake, or <a href=\"http:\/\/village.infoweb.ne.jp\/~fwic4591\/snake\/namihebi\/elphe\/text\/esimahebi.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Shima-hebi<\/a>. I don&#8217;t know why I have this compulsion to play with the snakes that I encounter. All that I can say is that it&#8217;s fun (until I get bitten\/envenomated I suppose).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past four days, I have already seen 3 snakes. One I spotted on the road, smashed (most likely when it was sunning itself) and attracting flies. I saw two yesterday in Saga-ken. The first one I saw when I was visiting Kannon no taki (Kannon waterfall) in Nanayama-mura (Seven mountain village). I jumped &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/2004\/04\/26\/snake-season\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creatures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicbuddha.com\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}