(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Were there always this many snakes and we just never noticed them?
I kid you not….yesterday my son and I were were in the car and one block from our house there was a dead snake in the middle of the road.
At first we thought it was a fake snake because it was so colorful. I actually *turned around* and went back so we could get out and look at it. My son was shocked! He could not believe that I was going to actually go back and look at it up close. Well, I looked at it from the car window while he got out and took a photo of it with my phone. It was not in bad shape so it didn’t seem weird to take a photo. I really just wanted to go home and make a positive identification using the photo. I will spare you the photo this time. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) The one we saw was much yellower in color than this one in the photo which made it very conspicuous.
It was a kingsnake. It looked like this one: California Kingsnake. Here is a good article: California King-snake.
These are good snakes…they eat rattlesnakes.
Okay, so now in less than a week I have seen two of the common snakes from our list of snakes from our snake study. It makes me wonder whether they were always here before and I did not notice them. I have been left in no doubt this week of the value of nature study and learning about what is right in our own neighborhoods.
It is a good thing we are not studying mountain lions…..
Your last comment about the mountain lions made me actually laugh out loud. 😉
Kathryn was reading over my shoulder & remembering when we had a big king snake in our yard year before last. We couldn’t convince our neighbor that it really was a “good” snake.
Now that is strange! And, thanks for posting a photo of a live snake and not that poor guy. 🙂 Looks like a beautiful snake!
Yes, thank you for not assigning mountain lions or bears.
My kids found a small snake yesterday. Fortunately for me, it had been recently run over by a car. It was still surprisingly intact.
I think that it must have been a juvenile because I’m having a tough time getting an id. My best guess so far is that it was a rat snake of some kind. I may have to visit the local environmental health office to get a full id. On the plus side, I’ve found all sorts of sites with Japanese snakes.