Now here's a little beauty, though the photo probably doesn't do justice to the fiery orange flashes running along his sides!
I damned near jumped out of my skin when I literally tripped over this big boy while on my field walk yesterday. A good two plus feet long, which is pretty fair for a garter snake this early in the season. Beautiful markings along his sides and a very triangular body.
We love snakes on the farm as they dine on the voles and mice that delight in eating the vines and digging burrows here and there. I do believe that the herons and hawks take more snakes than rodents, the latter being afforded excellent cover by the vines. This fellow clearly has survived more than one season and hopefully will render us good service for the privilege of being allowed to patrol our bogs.
It has taken some effort by me to learn to respect the serpents that live on the farm.
When I was five, six and seven we lived in northern France and I had terrifying tales of the dangers of all snakes drummed into me by my parents. Admittedly there were several species of poisonous snakes in the area and my sister and I tended to forage off the beaten path when we were out and about in the countryside.
After returning to Canada we lived in New Brunswick where my boyhood fishing forays were always preceded with lectures about the dangers of the Eastern Rattlesnake.
Two years later we were in Ontario and it was cautions about the dreaded Mississauga Rattlesnake. Not surprisingly I have had a visceral and largely irrational response to snakes ever since.
But, on the farm they are a valuable co-habitant of the land.
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