Snakes On The Rocks

Continuing the "Wildlife Out My Office Window" theme, I noticed what I thought was a snake by the fish pond. A common occurrence as the Northern Water Snakes have been hanging out in the filter boxen. 

I was wrong, it wasn't a snake.

It was two snakes. Northern Water Snakes. A female and male I believe, the female being the larger of the two.

And when I looked closer, I spotted a number of red mites. I count six on the female and one a rock in the image above. As there were a bunch more on the rocks, I'm not sure if they were afflicting the snakes or only wandering over them, just another type of rock as far as they were concerned. 

🕷  🕷  🕷

"So, naturalists observe, a flea has smaller fleas that on him prey; and these have smaller still to bite ’em; and so proceed ad infinitum." - Jonathan Swift

While trying to find out more about these mites I came upon the Parasite of the Day blog, specifically the page on Chiggers. I don't know if these are chiggers, although they do prey on reptiles. But I thought it was interesting, albeit a bit disgusting when you poke around there, that there is a Parasite of the Day blog.