It used to happen most years that I would find hatchling eastern milks in my garage and basement in late summer or early fall - usually all within a few days of each other and obvious fresh hatchlings. The past two years - nothing. I attributed this to finding and releasing a 3-foot adult found in my bathroom (she must have wiggled up a heating pipe through a wall) three springs ago. With no hatchling eastern milks in my basement for two summers I figured I must have evicted the denning female (I released her into the woods in back of my house).

Well, either she found her way back in or there are more eastern milks in my foundation than I originally thought. Or, and this might be a more likely scenario, they like to lay their eggs near my foundation and the hatchlings find their way inside. I found two hatchlings today. One was on the steps in my basement and one was at my basement door. My basement steps are white carpet so the little guy stood out plain as day. The one at my basement door was on grey concrete so he was easy to spot too.

One common factor in my eastern milk finds in my house: heavy rain. They seem to show up inside after heavy rain and we got almost five inches from TS Irene on Sunday. Maybe they are getting flooded out of a den? I did find one large adult (solid 3-feet) in late May crossing the road in front of my house - leaving my yard.

Pictures of the find are here. They were released into my raspberry patch in my backyard. For the locale folks, I'm in central Mass.

Rob Haneisen

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