Snakes Alive!

hehehehehe funny you should mention that.. I was just thinking about the time a guy bought some property down close to our ranch.. He wanted to use my four wheeler to ride around..so I granted it to him..

He came back after a few hours with some great shots of a huge rattle snake laying in the road. apparently he thought it dead.. took photos up close and personal .. almost touching it and the road around and came back. When back he showed me his great photos of a rattle snake thick as someones arm but twice as long just down by my stream bed on the road dead. I said oh ,let us go and see the snake and get the rattles.. we hopped onto the four wheeler road down and snake gone, but a trail of where it slithered on across the road in the sand.. hmmm guess snake wasn't dead..

I thought the guy was going to have a heart attack.. he had photographed a live rattle snake up close and personal and live to tell about it and show photos.. I still have the photos somewhere and will find and post.. moral of the story snake games or no games make sure when taking photos of said snakes ,they can't turn and take a plunge at you, king,garter or grass snakes or etc.. beware my friend. :-)

Oh that's so cool! Did you get pictures? King snakes are really beautiful...

Bees inside the house aren't so cool...


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Editing comment: with a telephoto lens...

King snake with Queen Bee that would make a nice children's book.

I will be taking no pix!!
The bees moved on.
Whew!
Alfred... Excellent name!

I'm glad that winter is over but I am so NOT ready for snakes!!! Thankfully we only seem them in our yard once ever few years!!!

We get a Lynx regularly too.
I'm such a city kid.
It's bizarre

My uncle raised snakes; King snakes were always my favorite.

As a kid I wrapped them around my neck and fed them mice.

There are many varieties. What color were yours?

I hung out with a barred owl for awhile not too long ago and filmed him eating two snakes. That's my only snake story.

Wow, Peggy!!

Love the Kings...beautiful! And they keep the Rattlesnake population down, cause they eat 'um!:}

Black ones. About as thick as a garden hose. About 3 ' long

SWEET

I like snakes, outdoors of course. A bit early to spot our friendly neighbors here in Missouri. There are prairie rattlers and copperheads a few miles south of here but I have found none in our woods. We have garters and yellow banded prairie snakes plus a few others some no longer than a pencil. We did have a Mt. lion close by a couple of years ago.

Here too Marlene. I saw a little ribbon snake but they do not bother me. It's the cottonmouths that I am terrified of. Every year I kill at least three in my yard! YIKES!

Marlene, I had snake soup once, it tasted like chicken!

Well, the bees moved on....our bee keeper/relocator, assured us they were only looking for a place to take up residence.
I guess my rent was too high.

The snakes, however, will hang until our bird-brain quail start laying enough eggs to make it worth their while.
We leave them alone since they do eat baby rattlers.

The latest canine addition to our family will be in town this weekend, a King Charles cavalier....we'll have to hold onto her outside...the coyotes are hungry as well....
For those of you who have met me, you know this is SO NOT me!!

brrrrrrr..... These snakes ...!!!!! I once had one in my garage. I thought it was a joke and a plastic one.. but soon I realised it had spent the winter there ! Such a shock - afraid it would hide somewhere.. tried to phone vets and others I thought could catch it for me but watching it from a distance all the time !. Even could get my neighbor come and "guard" it till help would come - took hours till finally a lady came and took it with her. What a shocking experience !

I managed to get a photo of this very large cottonmouth in my ditch before I shot it! I never kill non-venomous snakes, just these guys and rattle snakes. My dog likes to play with them and that scares the Dickens out of me, so I kill them before they bite her.

Phyllis, do such ones come to your garden ?

When I first moved to Tucson, I was told that the fire department will come and relocate dangerous snakes.....I had one in my front yard and wasn't planning on getting close enough to determine whether or not it was 'dangerous.'
It was a bull snake and they relocated it from the front to the backyard! lol.

I like my bee guy better....he has a fake queen bee that he keeps in his vehicle....the bees then migrate to his vehicle and literally cover it up, trying to get to the Queen...he then vaccuums them up.
He relocates them to his farm where they live out their lives making honey...

i found a alligator lizard in my yard yesterday and i put it in a bucket let my kids check it out! i didn't even know there were lizards in seattle. i have to let him go before my kids wake up.

I hate snakes! I saw my first ever scorpion this past Saturday!! Yikes!

Back when I was young and fit I would run out in the desert and once I was about 3 miles into a five mile run and I hear this loud rattling noise. I look back in the middle of the road and there he was all coiled up and ready to strike. I don't know if I ran right over him or not (scary) but I admit snakes make me a little nervous and that was just what I needed to finish the rest of the run.

They are all xxx's creatures and serve a purpose. Especially the bees.

Glad they found a new home. There would be practically no crops without them.

I'm sure we all read the news and know about the dwindling numbers.

Marlene,

We have a few snakes here too! Here's a small-ish black snake in the front:



And we have the older family members in the backyard. The largest black snake was about 4' and thicker than my thumb in the back,looking for lizards and stuff.

A few months ago, I was standing in my front yard,talking to a neighbor and I saw one of "my" snakes crossing the street! I stopped and went over and caught him and returned him to his rightful plot of land! I don't think he's tried that since!

Rich

My volunteer job as a Florida Park Ranger includes taking care of a corn snake and a Florida pine snake. I've also encountered many while in the park, including several eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. Captured this image of a Florida king snake at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter, Florida.

Art

Remember, when photographing snakes, the results tend to be better if you can get down to snake level. (That's lower than wiener level, Marlene.)
I did NOT do that with a rattlesnake I photographed on the asphalt of Highway 1 next to a parking lot at a location where sea lions were gathered on the beach.just north of the Hurst Mansion.
I like snakes, and particularly the scarlet king snake. But that little rhyme to distinguish between a coral snake and a king snake doesn't stick reliably in my memory. So I'm careful until I have a positive ID, particularly since the coral snake isn't a recognizable pit viper.

You mean like this Gregory?



Spent most of my son's spring break looking for them. They are out but not moving much yet. Only found one cottonmouth.

OMG
We found the swarm in our neighbor's yard a few doors down. Apparently, the ones we had were out looking for their hive....
HE"S having the bee guru out to relocate them.

You are so lucky. All we have here in France, that are dangerous, are the Adder and the Asp Viper. Niether of which is normally mortal.

Marlene,
I love that bee relocation story!

Marlene one of my sons and his wife and one of my daughters and her husband and our grand daughters all live in Tucson and they never mention snakes but scorpions yes.Our daughter and son in law and grandchildren will be there.. this first summer for them.I hope there isn't a bad population of snakes around where they live... now im worried :-(

Jean, depending on where in town they live...some parts are much more civilized than others...but no one escapes the scorpions. I had two in the house this year....they totally unnerve me....and those little ones are the most dangerous. Of course, I was barefoot noth imes...I now wear shoes for the first tie in 31 years.

Chris, this bee guru knows everything there is to know bout bees...and he loves them, protects them and only asks for donations to service your problem.....we are just waiting to see his truck later today so that we can watch him attract the bees to them again!

I have some there in Orlando too

Maybe that's what those selfie sticks can be used for! If fishing with live minnows in the South you can usually catch one or two water moccasins.

Bee swarms are valuable. People will pay to get a colony for their hive, if they've lost theirs. It's the right thing to do ecologically to get a bee keeper to recover the swarm.

My brother-in-law had a large bee colony under his house. He called a bee-keeper who removed them and gave us the honey combs. That was the best honey that I have ever tasted. We should be very protective of honey bees always.
Marlene, are not the African killer bees rampant in the desert parts where you live?