Gray rat snake, again

Several ago, I caught a gray rat snake at the base of the bird feeders. Bagged him up, and took him for a ride out into the national forest nearby. Then a couple of days ago, Connie found a larger one crawling in the path between the shed and the old mouse building. I really didn't feel like messing with him, so I just let him be. He was heading towards the shed, so I warned him to stay away from the bird feeders and concentrate his efforts on the rodents.

So this evening I walked into the bedroom getting ready to retire the regular clothes for my "relax-ware". But something didn't look right in the berry bush outside the bedroom window. Yeah, gray rat snake laying up right where the hummingbirds tend to sit in that tree to scout out for competition at the feeders. So I went out to round him up.





Pics aren't too good because I was in a hurry to get him before the sun went down, and the skeeters were kind of enjoying my being out there that time of the day. This didn't look like neither one of the prior mentioned animals. And normally when I pick these critters up, they don't struggle or get upset at all. THIS one was quite a bit on the nippy side and got me at least a half dozen times before I could restrain his head. Maybe it's the time of the day making a difference. But anyway, means a trip out into the forest again tomorrow.

Last week I noticed the brown anoles all upset and seeking high places, and that usually means a black racer is nearby. I went around the corner of the house and saw a 3 foot black racer on top of a 3 1/2 foot coachwhip. I was curious to see if the racer was attempting to mate, but got too close and it took off. Later on I saw both of them prowling around the flowers. Today I saw what appeared to be an immature rat snake crawling along the fenceline. I have to say, Florida is a herping paradise.

Yeah, that it is. When I was a kid I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven to be living here. Green anoles hanging around on the porch. Always having to chase blue tailed skinks and racerunners away from the garage doors so they don't run inside. Having to be careful where you walk so you don't accidentally step on brown backed skinks. This is the time of year that babies are hatching out so little lizards are everywhere.

Wish there were more gopher tortoises here on the property, however. We used to see them every now and again, but it's been a long time since we've seen any about. I know where a smaller active burrow is located, and I actually set up a game camera last year to make sure there was a tortoise there. But none of the larger adults have been spotted. Not sure what happened to them. Perhaps the fire ants are taking a toll on the eggs when they hatch. Haven't seen as many box turtles as we have seen in the past, neither.

Of course, there are parts of our property that we have never even walked over, so maybe there are more critters here then we realize.

When I was just a toddler chasing green anoles around our house in South Miami it was probably the start of my love, or fascination, for reptiles. Unfortunately, a hurricane shook the dickens out of our house and my mother told my dad she was never so scared in her life. We moved north and it took me 60 years to get back to Florida. I was surprised that the green anoles were pushed out by brown anoles around here. I've only seen one green anole in 7 years.

We've still got the green anoles here on our property, but have seen some Cuban browns at locations not too far away. In my opinion, the greens are a whole lot more personable and approachable than the Cubans are.

I'm seeing a wide variety of colors in the browns, some spotted, some very light, some striped, but the greens were my favorite. The green and spiny-tailed iguanas have shown up and really look prehistoric. I have driven around Cape Coral to see if I can spot the Nile Monitor colonies there. So far no luck. The tortoises have dens near my house, and I sometimes see two males fighting in my front yard. Quite comical the way they ram each other, but no damage, just intimidation. A few Veiled chameleons were found in Lehigh Acres, and people have told me there are a lot of them. I wouldn't mind finding one, but remember the days when I had to order 5,000 crickets at a time for all the reptiles. Never again!

Yeah, I remember when Connie and I lived in Maryland and had all the reptiles in the basement. She had to order in a bunch of crickets for her leopard geckos and invariably some would escape. So in the middle of the night you have the chirping of the crickets that found their way upstairs driving you nuts. After a while of that, I wound up taking the time to cut off the wings of ALL the crickets we got in. Seriously. It was THAT bad. It was either that or getting up in the middle of the night with a shotgun to get that cricket that was SOMEWHERE upstairs.

I usually transferred the crickets from the shipping boxes to 10 gallon aquariums. If I wasn't careful some would cling to the egg crates and get loose in the house. Sue was not a happy camper hearing chirping all night. I put glue traps all over the house and that worked well until my little dogs stepped in them.

Yeah, glue traps don't work very well any place where you have little lizards running around, neither.

My son had crickets escape in his basement, so he set out glue traps. He caught a few crickets, but also caught a male hognose that was missing for 2 1/2 years. The funny thing was that he was healthy looking, and Lord knows what he ate or drank in all that time.

I'll tell you something else I thought was funny. I had two Leopard gecko colonies that I kept to hatch out young for his pet shop sales. They were laying so many eggs that I got tired of hatching them out, just to give the babies to him, plus buying all the crickets. I finally told him I'd take all the geckos to him and he could hatch the babies himself. I dropped the colonies off and we set them up just as I had them in my house. I called him a month later and asked how many eggs he was incubating. He said the geckos quit laying and he didn't have any eggs. Go figure.