Sam found it! I said not to worry – I have a friend who would have picked him up and moved him to the gardens in her hands!! Do you remember that day? c
Oh my! I would not want to come across that. We had rattlers in Los Angeles but luckily not many snakes here in the Dordogne. Garden snakes but the only venomous snakes are vipers. Luckily I have not yet come across any although my neighbours have seen a few.
They hiss, they bump you with their noses, they rattle their tails to sound like a rattlesnake. We hatched 3 Louisiana Pine Snakes here last year, and they pop out of the egg acting like big, scary snakes. I love them!
Like most people Celia, I too am afraid of snake (and having lived all my married live somewhere in the Tropics I came across plenty!) but this one is a beauty. Lucky to be able to photograph. Carina
As a botanist once told me “Slit eye, goodbye! Round eye, nice guy.” I thought, swell–I’m going to bend down to check the eyes, but I can see you got a picture of its nice round eye, so it won’t hurt you, but it might like eggs. I saw a black snake once that couldn’t move off the trail because it was so full of eggs it looked like a black pearl necklace.
Depends on the species and location in the world. Some very venomous snakes have round black eyes. Also, if people are getting close enough to see the eyes, they are too close.
If you could see the eggs in the snake, it was likely a female getting ready to lay. When they eat eggs, they crush the shell and spit it back out. Snakes are fascinating!
Bull snakes are also called gopher snakes. They eat rodents, keep a barn free of rats and mice, and have many other benefits. We are quick to be afraid of snakes but in this case they are good guys. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-reptiles-snakes-saving-snakes/2911/ Check out this website. In Georgia we are on a campaign to save King snakes, Black snakes, and Racer snakes because they do so much good. Look at the shape of the head – triangular = poisonous, no discernible big jaws and more bullet shaped = good guys. Eyes – cat like = poisonous. Learn your local snakes – do a little research. King snakes eat the poisonous ones like copperheads, rattlers and water moccasins. The good guys are not aggressive unless threatened, and even then they have teeth but are not poisonous. Just give them some room. Usually they will just slither away out of harms way. The only trouble with the big ones is some kinds like to eat chicken eggs. Then you have to pick them up into a sack and move them a mile or so away to a safe location. Because people have been indiscriminately killing the good ones with the bad we are getting more of the poisonous ones. I stop in the road to save the good ones (along with turtles) from being run over and carefully dig them out of deer netting or other obstructions if they get caught. Yes they can be startling but having one of the beneficial ones around is a kind of blessing. Make friends and don’t hurt them please!
Don’t relocate that far away. They will die without their known hunting grounds and hibernation dens. Also, don’t rely on eye or head shape. Non-venomous ones can and will triangulate their heads and even rattle their tails to warn potential predators. It’s impressive and convincing!
It’s definitely the season to be more careful here; not only are the harvesting the cane, which drives out the snakes, it’s also winter, and the snakes are looking for somewhere cosy to hang out till the days are longer and temps are higher. All my compost heaps and woodpiles are suddenly potential snake country, and ours are generally bad guys: red bellied blacks, brown snakes and coastal taipans. I maintain an extremely respectful distance and announce myself loudly to give them a chance to get away. Our equivalent to the pretty fellow above would be carpet snakes, or pythons, as they’re known here. They get big – they’re constrictors – but don’t generally bite or get too troublesome.
Hate to think of all the times up north I have had to stop the car to ‘give way’ to a carpet one straddling the road : so beautiful tho’!! Wonder whether you get heaps of the little grass ones that neatly always drop from tree branches onto your blouse 🙂 ? Don’t get taipans here but heaps of red-bellied and brown . . . have to give each flower-bed a beating ere putting a hand in!! Haven’t has one indoors but the big field rats and piles of mice somehow sure find their way in out of the cold . . . yuck . . . thankfully they love peanut butter in the traps!!!! the farmy one looks like a beauty!
We give way to all of them! I haven’t seen any of the little grass snakes, and we don’t see too many of the venomous ones, but the Husband had a red-bellied black zip between his feet on the way outside when he was peacefully using the laundry toilet…
*huge smile* He must have ‘finished’ in a very great hurry! Actually the mice are ‘sweet’ but the rats try to pick a fight: not funny when one uses the toilet in the middle of the night . . . one seems to have rented the space above my bedroom ceiling at the moment . . . have a good Sunday: I am sleepy after all the politics rather than cycling last night . . . not used to holding one’s breath till 2am
Snakes really scare and most times I can never figure out if they are the good kind or the poisonous ones. But after reading some of the comments here I guess I will know what to look for !
Amazing shots by the way!
I always recommend learning what the venomous snakes in your area look like. In East Tennessee, for example, only two are venomous. It’s easy to learn what is harmless if you know what it is NOT. If you’re on Twitter, @alongsidewildlife is an excellent resource for snake identification.
I’m appalled by snakes, but love lizards, turtles, geckos, iguanas, all manner of those tiny tykes with independent eyes. It’s a snake’s means of locomotion! “Look Ma, no hands!”
The Kitchen's Garden
57 responses to “Be careful Out There”
Cool! who came across that?
Sam found it! I said not to worry – I have a friend who would have picked him up and moved him to the gardens in her hands!! Do you remember that day? c
I do remember. This one looks big tho it is hard to tell. Looks very healthy, there must be lots to eat!
Toads – piles of them this year.. c
Same que as kim !
Oh my! I would not want to come across that. We had rattlers in Los Angeles but luckily not many snakes here in the Dordogne. Garden snakes but the only venomous snakes are vipers. Luckily I have not yet come across any although my neighbours have seen a few.
Ugh! Are they venomous?
Not venomous, just drama queens. The whole genus is like that. And they are so beautiful!
That is hilarious!!!
They hiss, they bump you with their noses, they rattle their tails to sound like a rattlesnake. We hatched 3 Louisiana Pine Snakes here last year, and they pop out of the egg acting like big, scary snakes. I love them!
NO not at all – in fact we don’t have any poisonous snakes native to this area.. c
That’s okay then! 🙂
Nooo (runs away screaming), I’m out of here. Laura
Yes, the snakes needs to be careful not to scare people.. c
I can tolerate a lot of things…..but a snake is not one of them. Ugh…I hate snakes! I probably won’t sleep tonight after seeing those pictures……😉
Brilliant photo, although I’m hoping that you had a zoom on your camera!
Like most people Celia, I too am afraid of snake (and having lived all my married live somewhere in the Tropics I came across plenty!) but this one is a beauty. Lucky to be able to photograph. Carina
ooh pretty! I believe they’re non-venomous constrictors like our pythons, yes? Still best to give him a wide berth and let him move on tho I assume 🙂
Yes – they live in our garden eating frogs and mice.. c
As a botanist once told me “Slit eye, goodbye! Round eye, nice guy.” I thought, swell–I’m going to bend down to check the eyes, but I can see you got a picture of its nice round eye, so it won’t hurt you, but it might like eggs. I saw a black snake once that couldn’t move off the trail because it was so full of eggs it looked like a black pearl necklace.
I should say it won’t poison you; it might still bite you.
Depends on the species and location in the world. Some very venomous snakes have round black eyes. Also, if people are getting close enough to see the eyes, they are too close.
If you could see the eggs in the snake, it was likely a female getting ready to lay. When they eat eggs, they crush the shell and spit it back out. Snakes are fascinating!
You have the best information – I always think of you when I see a snake..
Nice snaps, but I’m not sure what you’re “sayin’”…good? bad? beautiful? scary? What? 🙂
Beautiful.. c
Bull snakes are also called gopher snakes. They eat rodents, keep a barn free of rats and mice, and have many other benefits. We are quick to be afraid of snakes but in this case they are good guys. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-reptiles-snakes-saving-snakes/2911/ Check out this website. In Georgia we are on a campaign to save King snakes, Black snakes, and Racer snakes because they do so much good. Look at the shape of the head – triangular = poisonous, no discernible big jaws and more bullet shaped = good guys. Eyes – cat like = poisonous. Learn your local snakes – do a little research. King snakes eat the poisonous ones like copperheads, rattlers and water moccasins. The good guys are not aggressive unless threatened, and even then they have teeth but are not poisonous. Just give them some room. Usually they will just slither away out of harms way. The only trouble with the big ones is some kinds like to eat chicken eggs. Then you have to pick them up into a sack and move them a mile or so away to a safe location. Because people have been indiscriminately killing the good ones with the bad we are getting more of the poisonous ones. I stop in the road to save the good ones (along with turtles) from being run over and carefully dig them out of deer netting or other obstructions if they get caught. Yes they can be startling but having one of the beneficial ones around is a kind of blessing. Make friends and don’t hurt them please!
Goodness me – of course I am not going to hurt them. We are all well versed about our snakes and never hurt them. c
Don’t relocate that far away. They will die without their known hunting grounds and hibernation dens. Also, don’t rely on eye or head shape. Non-venomous ones can and will triangulate their heads and even rattle their tails to warn potential predators. It’s impressive and convincing!
It’s definitely the season to be more careful here; not only are the harvesting the cane, which drives out the snakes, it’s also winter, and the snakes are looking for somewhere cosy to hang out till the days are longer and temps are higher. All my compost heaps and woodpiles are suddenly potential snake country, and ours are generally bad guys: red bellied blacks, brown snakes and coastal taipans. I maintain an extremely respectful distance and announce myself loudly to give them a chance to get away. Our equivalent to the pretty fellow above would be carpet snakes, or pythons, as they’re known here. They get big – they’re constrictors – but don’t generally bite or get too troublesome.
Hate to think of all the times up north I have had to stop the car to ‘give way’ to a carpet one straddling the road : so beautiful tho’!! Wonder whether you get heaps of the little grass ones that neatly always drop from tree branches onto your blouse 🙂 ? Don’t get taipans here but heaps of red-bellied and brown . . . have to give each flower-bed a beating ere putting a hand in!! Haven’t has one indoors but the big field rats and piles of mice somehow sure find their way in out of the cold . . . yuck . . . thankfully they love peanut butter in the traps!!!! the farmy one looks like a beauty!
We give way to all of them! I haven’t seen any of the little grass snakes, and we don’t see too many of the venomous ones, but the Husband had a red-bellied black zip between his feet on the way outside when he was peacefully using the laundry toilet…
*huge smile* He must have ‘finished’ in a very great hurry! Actually the mice are ‘sweet’ but the rats try to pick a fight: not funny when one uses the toilet in the middle of the night . . . one seems to have rented the space above my bedroom ceiling at the moment . . . have a good Sunday: I am sleepy after all the politics rather than cycling last night . . . not used to holding one’s breath till 2am
🙂
It’s going to be close, isn’t it?
Snakes really scare and most times I can never figure out if they are the good kind or the poisonous ones. But after reading some of the comments here I guess I will know what to look for !
Amazing shots by the way!
I always recommend learning what the venomous snakes in your area look like. In East Tennessee, for example, only two are venomous. It’s easy to learn what is harmless if you know what it is NOT. If you’re on Twitter, @alongsidewildlife is an excellent resource for snake identification.
Thank you, I will check it out.
I’m appalled by snakes, but love lizards, turtles, geckos, iguanas, all manner of those tiny tykes with independent eyes. It’s a snake’s means of locomotion! “Look Ma, no hands!”
Chuckling here. “Look, Ma, no hands” indeed. Much love, Your Gayle