3 Smaugettes

[lavendertook]

I saw 3 snakes down by the lake in May. I believe they are all eastern rat snakes. They are nonvenomous, as are all the snakes in these parts, excepting the copperhead, which I haven't seen around here. They could still give you a bite if you step on or handle them, which I wouldn't presume to do. Poor things were scared enough. I wasn't quite as close as my macro lense makes it look, so if you're a worrier, don't worry.


This young rat snake was a little over a half inch in diameter and 2 to 3 feet long. Ze was stretched across the path between the back parking lots of the fire station and St Hugh's Church, holding still and hoping I would mistake hir for a wavy stick, which I did at first. I love how this snake is stretched out and yet evenly kinked along hir whole length. Such a cute wave. And ze has a lovely oil slick pearlescent sheen in the sun.





Ready for hir close up. It's possible this may be a black racer snake, but I think ze's the rat snake. You can see hir sheen a little better in this pic. I did nudge hir tail before leaving to get hir to move into the brush, as that wasn't a very safe spot for a snake to hang out.



I thought this tiny snake might have been a garter snake, but after looking hir up, I think ze is probably a juvenile eastern rat snake, too. They're brown and blotchy like this when young.



This big rat snake was about 2 inches in diameter and probably a good 4 feet at least when uncoiled. A man pointed hir out to me, and was poking a stick at hir. I was luckily able to convince him to leave the poor critter be.



You can see a little bit of the pearlescent sheen over hir subtle patterning.



This snake was also holding very still hoping we'd forget ze was there. There was plenty of room for hir to slither off further into the underbrush, so this is not a coiled to strike position.



Here's looking at you, kid.

Comments

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

I'm not a snake-phobe so those pics are really beautiful to me! I love seeing snakes in their own environment (in other words, I wouldn't feel so kindly if one was in my house or toilet or something).

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

You know, I could deal with them in my house better than spiders because they move so much more predictably than spiders with their multidimensiolnal jumping--the little bastards!