Snake in the grass

On Wednesday morning my coworker Yoshi spotted a Garter snake when he stepped out the back door of our office. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to follow him outside, camera in hand. It certainly didn't seem too alarmed by our presence, which allowed me to get closer than I'd expected to. In fact, you can spot two drops of water on its head in this shot—one on the tip of its nose, and one on the upper edge of its forehead (just a reminder: you can click on any photo I post to see it in a larger size):



A look at its entire length:



It then looked like it was going to make its way across the walkway, so I set myself up in its path to try and get some shots of it coming toward me instead of moving away. I also took a ton of shots whenever it stuck its tongue out, hoping for maybe one or two decent ones. In this photo, both my goals were achieved:



I really like how its body was curved in this shot:



It continued along its way right in front of where I was crouched next to our picnic table, so I used the bench to brace the camera and worked on getting some good close-ups; in this one, you can see the fork of its tongue just poking past its mouth:



Without question, the best shot I got of the snake with its tongue extended:



Finally, I cropped this one in nice and tight so you can see more of the details, such as the new water drop it's sporting on the tip of its nose and the reflection of the clouds in the snake's eye: