First snake observations of the year

[joeysgreen]

It's been a while since I've contributed an original post so I thought I'd share some pictures of the herp's I've been turning up. My first snake of the year was a rough earth snake, Virginia striatula. About an hour later I found my second, a prairie ringneck snake, Diadophis punctatus arnyi. Later in the day I found a massive red-sided garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis, basking at pond's edge. It was easiest the largest garter snake that I've even seen, rivally some of the captive monsters I've seen posted elsewhere on these forums. I didn't measure it, but it was approximately 3' long, with a girth approaching 2" diameter (though she was inflated in defense). The head was impressive. Needless to say, at first glance it was assumed to be a medium sized Nerodia. Unfortunately, forums as they are, uploading photos didn't work out as well as I'd like, so the most impressive snake I have to show, gets the least impressive photo.

Ian

[joeysgreen]

[Albert Clark]

Very nice J! Thanks for sharing. Cant wait to see more. Lol.

[Eddie]

Very cool. We have a few more weeks to wait here before we see any wild herps.

[Tommytradix]

Very cool. We have a few more weeks to wait here before we see any wild herps.

i went out the other day when it was in the 70s 2 days in a row and only seen frogs and one turtle lol still too chilly on the east coast lol

[guidofatherof5]

Nice.

[Zdravko092368]

Very nice, I'm hoping to potentially observe snakes this week in ONTARIO! Yes it has been that warm this year... good for me but bad signs for the planet.

[Jeff B]

nice looking variety pack, that was a good spring day. That is a big girl, very girthy and low red, reminds me of the golden red-sided morph from a few years back. I never had any but I saw pics. Thanks for sharing

[KashGarter27]

I have a male golden red side

[joeysgreen]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. As per being a golden red-sided, I have found that the T.s.parietalis I find in Oklahoma are definitely not the typical colours that I have become familiar with in the western Canadian provinces.