OK, there’s only one snake, but it’s a big one. [Full disclosure: I consider any snake over 6 inches long to be a big snake.]
I first saw this snake crawling into the jasmine in the back yard. I only saw its tail but there was plenty of that. After some hunting around online I decided it was a blotched water snake. They eat fish. So I looked out at the pond and THERE IT WAS right by the pond. Creepy.
I saw it go into the water a couple of times and the first thing it does is stick its head under water, I guess to see who else is there.
Then it takes its head out, gets situated, and just dives in. I think most of our fish are too big for this snake to eat, but probably not all. I don’t know how long it has been around or if any of the fish are missing. I got the skimmer and bothered it around the pond a lot but I couldn’t make it get out. I didn’t see it attack a fish and they didn’t seem overly concerned but if there is such a thing as smart fish, they don’t live here.
The snake mostly just hangs out under water. This is blurry but he’s just lying in a water lily pot.
He comes up for air about once a minute. How does a snake tread water?
That was Monday, and I haven’t seen him since. I hope he decided our pond wasn’t as peaceful as he thought it would be, or that there wasn’t anything to eat, and moved on. Of course there are a million places a snake could hide in our back yard and it worries me not knowing where he is. It’s not a poisonous snake but it will strike if it feels cornered and I don’t know how paranoid they are. As a friend said, it doesn’t matter if it’s poisonous — if it attacked me I would drop dead on the spot.
I have just ordered and received (within 1 week) my first Scarlet Quince pattern. Superb and speedy service. The pattern is magnificently printed and bound. I am anticipating a long happy relationship with my canvas!
From RUTH GRADY
13 years, 10 months agoI hope he isn’t eating your fish! He is a pretty big snake, Meredith. You’d better get in there and scoop him out of the pond.
I had actually figured that as a job for MRA. I got him to come home early to go snake hunting but of course by the time he got here, no snake.
From RUTH GRADY
13 years, 10 months agoMaybe your cats could catch him. Insomnia used to catch garter snakes at the house all the time – he’d come trotting up through the yard with what looked like a big wiggly mustache.
From rifestitch
13 years, 10 months agoWe ran into 2 snakes in one day a couple weekends ago – the dumb coonhound found a 4′ black snake in the tall grass along the road and killed it (after throwing it over his head like a sock), and later that day, while walking in the creek, the German shorthair walked right on a water snake and tipped it into the water. Gonna be a bad year for them, I think…