Our friend Elliot (age 13) has recently been announced as one of 15 winners across the country of the 2009 National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Contest. To win, he submitted a photograph and essay about one of his own recent explorations. He, of course chose an image from his vast collection of snake photos. This one was of a yellow-belly racer that he saw and photographed in Stebbins Cold Canyon UC Reserve. He wrote a 300-word essay about the canyon and about the day he photographed the snake.
And even more exciting is that the prize is a 12-day trip to Peru at the end of May to visit Machu Picchu and the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest for the winners and their chaperones! He also gets a new cool Nikon camera to take with him on the trip.
Elliot
Hands on Explorer Challenge Essay
2/3/09
Splash! After the three-mile hike through a dry rocky creek bed, the feeling of cool water is welcome as I plunge into the deep clear pool. The high walls of the canyon tower around me and before me is a mossy waterfall. Iridescent hummingbirds drink from the trickling falls and swoop overhead.
This is Cold Creek Canyon. Ever since I was a small child I have come here with family and friends, yet with every visit, I discover something new. Once it was a bobcat track along the creek, another time a pileated woodpecker in a massive oak tree. But my favorite things have always been the canyon’s reptiles and amphibians.
My love of herpetology began when I was 13 months old and I surprised my parents by pulling a garter snake from a grassy lake. Ever since I have been fascinated by these creatures and I look for them wherever I go. I spend hours researching, photographing, writing field notes, and keeping a life list of the over 165 species and subspecies of reptiles I have seen in the wild.
On this day in the canyon, my mother and I have an extraordinary experience. While sitting by the creek, we notice a yellow-belly racer come out of a hole. A nearby sound makes us look up and we see two racers together in a tree and three more below. I realize that the smaller snakes are males following one large female’s pheromones and that the snakes in the tree are mating.
I photograph the entire event. The photo here is of the first snake we saw. It is my favorite shot in the series because of the snake’s alertness as it searches the air with its tongue for scents. Whenever I see it, I remember this amazing day.
