Been an interesting last few days. On Friday night my neighbors knocked on my door in a panic. They saw a snake in their driveway that had a "triangular head" and a "diamond pattern." I went over there to look for the snake. While I was looking, the lady asked if we should "alert the neighbors." I told her (politely, of course) to calm down, thinking it was just a water snake. After a while, I found the killer snake under one of their stepping stones. It was a Dekay's snake, no thicker around than a pencil, maybe 12" -14" long! Gotta love irrational fear of snakes.
On Sunday I went looking for snakes, and I actually found one. (I normally don't find them when I'm looking for them.) It's a black rat snake in blue. Cool snake, very docile even in shed.
Then yesterday, a buddy of mine up in Raleigh calls me to come get a copperhead that has staked out it's territory in his neighbor's flower bed. This was interesting, because I removed another copperhead from his neighbor's yard a year or two ago. When I arrived there, the snake was laying within 2 or 3 feet from where the previous copperhead was. This one, however, was about a foot smaller than the previous one. My trusty spaghetti tongs did the trick again quite nicely. I think my buddy and his neighbor were a bit disappointed at the lack of drama, though. I simply picked up the copperhead with the tongs and put it in the rubbermaid container, took all of 2 seconds. Copperheads are awesome, they are extremely laid back. This one hardly moved even as I picked him up, and he didn't strike even once. Here are some pics:
The "copperhead" I removed from next door:
The gnarly rat snake:
Yesterday's copperhead:
The copperhead from a while back. This one was gorgeous:
