Gray rat snake on the back porch
 

Today, Connie went out on the back porch to tend to the little citrus trees she is growing from seed, and spotted this little gray rat snake just sunning himself on the ledge of our screen enclosure. She came to tell me about it and I just grabbed a camera to snap a few pics. I then caught it, bagged it up, and later on we ran it out to the forest to let it go. She doesn't want it to eat her lizards.

Not the best pics in the world, as I should have used a flash to neutralize the mottled lighting there, but what the heck.

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A few days ago we found a much larger gray rat snake coming from under the front porch. Was easily 4 ft. long. We bagged him up to and let him go out in the forest. He was prowling around the bird feeders, so we know what he had in mind.

O_o How did he even get up there? Hatchlings never cease to surprise me with the places they can get to.

Yeah, that did puzzle me too. I couldn't see any easy path for him to get where he was found. Hopefully he didn't snag "Bad Lizard". BTW, any anole that gets into that screen enclosure gets named "Bad Lizard", who is then escorted out the door. I put a new sweep on the door that seemed to help a lot, but every now and again, Bad Lizard will still figure out a way to get in there.

One of the Perk of being in Florida, you get to see snakes year round, well almost year round.

Here in my neck of the woods (Nashville Tn. area) the snakes definitely hide for 3 or 4 months of the colder part of the year.

We have had several days lately with temps in the 60s and 70s. The Bradford Pear Trees are in full bloom right now. Such pretty trees. But, that always means there's at least 1 or 2 more cold snaps for us, so the snakes seem to know that too.

I'm dying to get my snake hooks and camera out though for the first times this year.