Wow! Your snake group is growing!!!! I have missed your "Fred and Angie" stories!Well, it's a warm spring day, and i just saw Fred for the first time this year:
View attachment 204638
But that's not all.
On the 4th (i think it was) which was also warm, i saw Angie at least 3 times. One of those times she was completely out and sprawled on the wooden steps. Unfortunately i needed to come up those steps to get in the house, and no matter how unthreatening i tried to be, she scurried off into her hole. However, leaving a couple feet of tail sticking out vulnerably for some time.
Also there is a new guy i saw at the same time. A couple times he was poking out the right hole while Angie was poking out the left. They look about the same, but i can recognize who's who, don't ask me how.
I call the new guy Sam, and he is not afraid to hang out partially extruded from the hole, but hasn't shown more than a foot or so of length yet. Here is a pic from the 4th, but i also saw him again earlier today.
View attachment 204643
The next few days are supposed to be warm as well...
Those are really great pictures, by the way. It must have let you get close! Let's just say I'm glad he's in your lawn and not mine.Well, it's a warm spring day, and i just saw Fred for the first time this year:
View attachment 204638
But that's not all.
On the 4th (i think it was) which was also warm, i saw Angie at least 3 times. One of those times she was completely out and sprawled on the wooden steps. Unfortunately i needed to come up those steps to get in the house, and no matter how unthreatening i tried to be, she scurried off into her hole. However, leaving a couple feet of tail sticking out vulnerably for some time.
Also there is a new guy i saw at the same time. A couple times he was poking out the right hole while Angie was poking out the left. They look about the same, but i can recognize who's who, don't ask me how.
I call the new guy Sam, and he is not afraid to hang out partially extruded from the hole, but hasn't shown more than a foot or so of length yet. Here is a pic from the 4th, but i also saw him again earlier today.
View attachment 204643
The next few days are supposed to be warm as well...
Look at the milky eye, he's about to shed. If he doesn't have a good moist spot to soak you might toss him a kitty litter pan or something in a hidden spot for him to soak. We used to have gopher snakes in our decorative creek between ponds when they were about to shed.
Ha, well he was not flighty but eventually slunk back in his hole.
I realized too late why. I had harvested a bucket of leeks and was cleaning them for drying. Handy stock tank to rinse them in, mulch pile for discarding the greens, stairsteps for a towel to put the clean pieces on, a snake to keep me company... he had been on the ledge to the right of the stairs a long time.
But then the harsh onion smell must have driven him away.
I agreed with you his size makes me believe he is a king snake. Very good snake to keep around. He eats the venomous snakesthere is warmth(rocks hold heat from sun for days, even overcast days....and there's food there getting warm too.... maybe rodents, moles, ground squirrels, mice, something good to eat he says. kinda looks like a black kingsnakes we have in ga, the one my neighbor was going to kill. these are the good guys very cool snakes. View attachment 174311FEEDING HABITS: Black kingsnakes are active almost exclusively by day, but are most active in the morning during the summer. They are strong constrictors and consume a variety of prey including snakes, lizards, rodents, birds, and turtle eggs. Kingsnakes are resistant to the venom of pit-vipors and they readily eat copperheads, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes.