Surprise Snake

There I was, minding my own business last weekend while I was doing some fall-cleanup chores; you know, things like putting the peony supports up for the winter, filling the bird feeders, and mowing off dead peony stems.   And there it was, trying to be inconspicuous and camouflaged for the surrounding.  Luckily for both of us, it moved.   Do you see it?   As you look closer, please be courteous and ignore the fact that most of the "green" stuff here are weeds (Common Dayflowers). Sometimes, one surrenders to the chaos.

Here, I'll outline it for you.  Now can you find it?   Thank God, at the time I discovered it that I wasn't weeding on my knees with bare hands like I did in this bed during the hottest part of the summer!  It seems late in the season to come across a snake, and it was relatively cool that day, maybe 55F at the time I took this picture, so I certainly didn't expect the encounter.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of snakes in the grasses of the prairie, but I rarely see one.  Just search for "snake" in the search box on the right hand side if you want to see other species that I've encountered here.

I'm sure this is a North American Racer (Coluber constrictor), and a big one too.    If the species maximum length is up to 55.5 inches, this one was every bit of 50 inches long and 2 inches in diameter at its thickest area, although I didn't ask it to hold still for any measurement, nor did I go inside and come back out with a measuring tape. In fact, once it recognized that I had noticed it, it quickly slithered away, gone as I attempted to zoom in for better detail.  I got more detail than I really wanted anyway; just click on any picture here to see it full size.  

Here, I'll give you a closeup of the head.   Now can you see it?   Internet sources tell me it is harmless, not really a constrictor, and prefers to dine on insects, frogs, lizards, small mammals, and small birds rather than large, hyperventilating gardeners.  But if you've read my blog since its beginning, you know that factoid doesn't bring me any comfort.   I hate snakes, although I do acknowledge their value in controlling vermin in my landscape and I am less prone to running headlong into the next county at the sight of one then I used to be.  Regardless, if this guy's (girl's?) home territory is really 25 acres, I'll likely never see it again.   Or so I hope.  One sighting is more than ample.

Can You See Me Now?

In my garden, after all these years, I'm reasonably sure that 99% of what lives there won't kill me.  It took ProfessorRoush all these years of jumping at the first sight of a slithering serpent or running madly away from the minuscule movements of a measly mouse to finally cultivate calmness in the face of garden calamity.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush thinks I have lost my fear of snakes entirely, but in truth, although I still react with the instincts of a chimpanzee and want to scream and throw feces at them, I have simply restrained my response to reaching a safe distance in a reasonable period of time rather than at full panicked gallop.

Thus it was that this morning, while picking strawberries on my hands and knees, I didn't react at all when there was a rustling beneath the strawberry leaves and movement a few inches away from my hand.  I didn't, in fact, even move my hand away.  I had just picked strawberries from all over the area in question, so I figured that if it was finally time to encounter a scared and biting copperhead, it was just my turn.  In actuality it was something else entirely.  Can you find it in the picture at the upper right?

How about this one?  Can you make out the tiny furry ear in the center of the picture at left?  Both the diminutive creature at the center of the first picture and the non-moving ear in the second are a pair of baby rabbits who were concealed in a small depression in the center of my strawberry patch.  I imagine Mama Rabbit must have thought, "what a great place to put my babies, here in all this foliage where no one can find them.  And only 20 feet from a few nice rows of peas and garden bean seedlings"  Which also explains what happened to a row of my just-sprouted peas that disappeared one night last week.


Well, as much as I have plans to kill or trap the several adult rabbits that are eating my hosta and small shrubs presently around the house, I'll just leave these two babies alone.  They aren't bothering the strawberries (as evidenced by my harvest today, pictured at the right), and they already lost their best chance at causing me a heart attack, so they can stay.  At least until next year when they're fully grown and eating the baby roses and asian lilies.

Why'd it have to be snakes?

One thing about it for sure; there are certainly snakes on the Flint Hills prairie.  As a general rule, I don't mind snakes, but I don't appreciate it when they fail to calmly announce their presence in my vicinity.  In my garden, they have a tendency to appear suddenly near my ankles. During the next few seconds after these encounters, when I’ve spontaneously broken the Olympic and World Records for the high jump, with my legs churning frantically to gain traction from the air, and while the snake is making all haste to head in an opposite direction, I realize what I’ve seen and ascertain whether or not it was a real threat and start becoming curious about it instead of scared. At heart, I'm a collector and cataloguer and I like to know what species share my garden with me.

The snakes in my vicinity are a gregarious group, and luckily, although there are a number of poisonous snakes listed as possibly present in my area, in ten years of living here I've only seen (or heard) the non-poisonous ones.  I worry about rattlesnakes alot, though, particularly since a great local reference, Amphibians and Reptiles in Kansas by Joseph T. Collins, makes a point of saying that "No one should rely on any rattlesnake to warn them by rattling, since many rattlesnakes never rattle until stepped on or otherwise molested."  Thanks a whole lot, Joseph, I've slept well ever since hearing that information.

The beauty pictured at the right is a Common Garter Snake that I found when I was moving a rose bush.  This cheeky fellow was biting at my shovel as I attempted to get underneath the bush.  He later apologized and became a frequent bystander as I did other gardening chores, slithering up to give his unsolicited opinion as I watered, mulched, or weeded.  I finally learned not to jump in panic if I saw orange and movement in my peripheral vision and the snake did his part by never again biting at my shovel.   I believe the same snake lived in the garden for three years, although I don't know where he takes his winter vacations to, but this season I've only seen offspring, so the patriarch may have moved on where his opinions were more valued.