FLORIDA TODAY (Melbourne, Florida) 29 August 06 Snake charmer: Melbourne man befriends all creatures, especially one clumsy reptile (Billy Cox)
When, in broad daylight, a couple of raccoons press their paws against the glass doors at Preston Studios in Melbourne, you expect it. And look -- here comes an ugly little opossum waddling onto the back porch and working its nasty little mouth like it's chewing on tin foil. You expect that, too.
You expect it because stained-glass artist Jerry Preston treats animals like fellow travelers who need a break. Squirrels, birds, rats -- they're all on the take, with varying degrees of elan. There's an exotic Tokay gecko in the house, for instance, whose two-note vocabulary is a common obscenity. Preston's video clips of a pileated woodpecker fighting with a rooster in his backyard entertained national audiences several years ago on a show called "Real TV."
What you don't expect, necessarily, is a wild Florida water snake joining the Jerry Preston Fan Club. But roughly three months ago, after observing the behavior of the serpent he now calls George ("his last name's off the record because it wouldn't be politically correct", Preston felt sorry for him and let him in.
"He was friendly but he didn't seem very bright," Preston says. "But George has become a favorite of mine."
Indeed, after just a few minutes of observing George's quirks, the extent of the problem is clear. In a landscaped artesian well-stocked with giant Koi fish and minnows, George literally flounders.
He executes clumsy, ill-timed lunges at the small fry, often bumping his snout into the slick rocks at the water's edge. Occasionally, George will take half-hearted jabs at the larger fish, get lucky, and maybe even clamp onto an indifferent pectoral fin. But the Koi refuse to acknowledge the annoyance and swim on, and the dejected, brown-banded reptile will let go.
George applied for membership in the Preston Fan Club in the blunt fashion you'd expect from an animal with a brain the size of a pea. The 2-foot snake evidently had studied Preston's daily fish-feeding rituals and assessed the pecking order. Porky, the biggest, was at the front of the line for hand-fed pellets, followed by Goldie, then Ruby Red Lips, and so forth and so on.
So one day, the hapless reptile emerged from hiding on the small, bushy pond island, and squiggled through the water toward Preston, beady eyes alight, head raised, open mouth imploring. Pitying the creature, Preston decided to cut up some chunks of raw fish.
"At first, he tried feeding him with a stick," says colleague John Emory, who was so astonished by the relationship, he began to document the exchange on his camcorder. "But then it got to the point where George would take the food right out of Jerry's hand."
Following a little experimentation, George, who was treated to expensive salmon only to spit it out, informed Preston that cheap Alaskan pollock was his snack of choice. And it's been that way ever since.
Today -- and you can see this with your own eyes -- George will swim toward Preston as he walks the circumference of the pond. Occasionally, the needy snake even will vacate the water to rest near his human buddy's foot.
"Or sometimes," Preston adds, "he'll rest his nose on my arm just to say hi."
At Reptile World in St. Cloud, facility director George Van Horn says, "It's very uncommon for somebody to make friends with a snake," and he prefers the conditioned-response-to-feeding stimulus explanation. Van Horn adds that George's ineptitude at catching fish probably is because of the species' notoriously poor eyesight, which takes a back seat to its keen olfactory senses.
On the other hand, Van Horn concedes that reptiles "do have different personalities" within their species. "I've got a lot of cobras here who have completely different dispositions. Some will hood up on you, some have never hooded up. We've got individual cards on all of them and their behaviors are pretty much consistent throughout their lives."
In Cocoa, master gardener Marion Anderson of the University of Florida's Brevard County agricultural extension service isn't surprised to learn about George's behavior.
"It doesn't happen everyday, but maybe it'll help make people aware that snakes aren't all bad," she says. "I am a gardener, but I think snakes are nice to have around, as long as they don't drop down on your head. Black snakes get real friendly. And snakes in general eat rodents and insects and all kinds of things you don't need."
Preston and Emory actually count three water snakes in their pond, two of whom keep low profiles and don't follow George's lead. But George is entertaining enough.
"What really surprised me about him is his metabolism," Preston says. "My impression of snakes, particularly boa constrictors, was that after they eat, they like to take a break and rest for awhile. But George wants to eat twice a day. He'd probably eat as much as I'd give him."
George just lays there in the water, looking up at Preston.
"No more!" he says, extending his empty hands. "See?"
George just lays there in the water.
"He likes me," Preston says. "He really does."
Melbourne man befriends all creatures, especially one clumsy reptile

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