Nature and stuff

So about a month ago I went for a walk by the Potomac in southern Maryland. Well, I wasn't walking right by the water, but I was close by walking in a field.



I stumbled across a few things and just enjoyed the fresh air. I'm working on a new project, I don't know what it is going to be exactly, but something keeps drawing me to being outside near the water. Which isn't too shabby considering it is summer.



The place I was walking also served as hunting grounds, thus the shotgun shells that were everywhere:



After reaching the end of the field and turning around, I was calm enough to notice the little things around me, like this dragonfly and wormy little fella:





After photographing the wormy little fella I started walking back and stopped in my tracks. At first I thought it was a piece of tire. Then I realized it wasn't. I stared at it, he stared at me and didn't move. I then thought it was dead until I saw its tongue stick out. I walked way out of its path and watched it slither away, his head held up like a cobra.



I went home and looked it up and it turns out he (or she) is a, Eastern Hognosed Snake. They aren't very common, and they aren't poisonous. They do however get mistaken for a cobra all the time because of their flat neck and behavior when threatened. The time I took these pictures is when they are most active during the year (mating season). Needless to say, after seeing the snake I decided to cut the rest of my field trip short. It was the first time I had seen a snake in the wild (besides one in our car when we were traveling across country) and I was pretty freaked.

Btw, the links in the previous post weren't working. So click on the picture to see the photos from the Festival of the Photograph.