Smooth Green Snake: Why Protecting and Maintaining Critical Habitat in the Chocorua Lake Basin Matters
by Stewardship Director Debra Marnich
Smooth green snake (Liochlorophis vernalis). Photo: Debra Marnich
Many CLC properties in the Chocorua Lake Basin contain high-value field habitats. Anyone who has tried to clear a field and then keep it a field knows the effort, sweat, blood, and (yes) tears that go into creating and maintaining field habitat. New Hampshire is eighty percent forested, so maintaining field habitat in this region is especially important. Many species of wildlife, birds, and insects depend on all or some parts of the field habitat for survival. A hen turkey situates her nest alongside a field habitat to provide her poults with a reliable high-protein diet of insects and seeds. Indigo buntings are seed-eating birds who nest specifically on the edge of the field to seek out plentiful food sources. Foxes, coyotes, rabbits, deer, birds of prey, insects, and voles all utilize field habitats during their life stages. Even reptiles, such as turtles, frogs, and snakes, utilize field habitats for all or some of their life stages.
Smooth green snake (glove for scale). Photo: Alex Moot
Recently, while stewarding a CLC property, we discovered a smooth green snake (Liochlorophis vernalis) resting on the edge of a field. It was early in the morning and the previous night’s temperature had dropped to around 37 degrees. In slowly rising morning temperatures, the snake was mostly sedated, and it remained on the edge of the field in an effort to warm in the sun’s rays. I marveled at its sleek emerald-green beauty and exceedingly timid demeanor. Snakes are a critical part of all ecosystems and the food web in general, as they are both predators and prey. With deep reflection, I realized that this was the first smooth green snake I have encountered in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire Fish and Game lists the smooth green snake as a species of special concern, vulnerable throughout New Hampshire. Smooth green snakes can be found in upland grassy fields, pastures, meadows, blueberry barrens, and forest openings. Their diet consists of mostly insects and they hibernate underground. Conservation threats are recognized as a loss of open field habitat from both succession and development. To create, maintain, preserve, and nurture field habitats in New Hampshire is crucial, because they are habitats that are shrinking and disappearing quickly. As we lose field habitats from the landscape, we will also lose the diversity of wildlife species that depend on this habitat.
CLC volunteers clip saplings in the field below the Basin View Lot to help maintain open field habitat. Photo: Alex Moot
CLC maintains several mixed-field habitats in the Chocorua Lake Basin, and is engaged in ongoing work to steward these properties to provide diverse and resilient wildlife habitats. It is with your assistance and support, through donations of time, funds, and many other generous resources, that CLC and the community can be proud to host a habitat where green snakes and many other field-loving species will continue to thrive and flourish.
Banner image: Smooth green snake. Photo: Alex Moot