Baiting snakes

[Thamnophis]

Okay Terry, thanks for explaining.

Maybe you can take the snakes to court for breaking in in your house?

[stonyloam]

Hi everyone: Well spring is finally here, it was a beautiful 65 F here today and it looks like the snakes are starting to hit the road. I was hoping to get a shot of them leaving, but I was pretty busy today and missed the big event. I did however find the nicest little (about 12 inches, 30 cm) garter since the “blue” one last year. She (I can’t believe one as pretty as this could be a guy) was just outside of the sunroom wall and I am sure that I have not seen her before. She is very light tan with a wide stripe and a double row of diamonds on her back. Her bottom side is a very light gray. A real beauty! I must admit I was very, very tempted to keep her, but common sense prevailed. I took a couple of photos of her and the “snake hole”. The first time I found the hole it looked like the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with 3 garters hanging out of it and two on the ground. I’ll keep posting as long as the action keeps going. See ya!

[greyhawk]

Nice snake. It isn't a garter snake though. It is a Dekays snake, aka, brown snake. They don't get very big, about 15 inches or so. So that means now you have 3 species of snake around your house. If I were to guess the next species of snake you find will be a ringneck snake. They are common around houses as well.

[stonyloam]

Thanks Greyhawk! Guess my ignorance is showing. I have never seen a brown snake, that I have known of. I guess the only thing that I have not seen this spring is a “common” garter.

[greyhawk]

Ya, i bet that milk snake is waiting for those garters to mate so it can feast on the young.

And just curious, do all the garter snakes you have seen in your area look like those garters? Because they definetly look like maritimes and on all the range maps I've seen maritimes don't live in NY and only eaterns do. I wonder if maritime is really just a phase of the eastern or what.

[stonyloam]

I have seen some “regular” garters around last summer, but everything that I have seen this spring looks like the maritime subspecies. According to what I have been able to find out, they do occur in NY, but I would not expect them to be very common.

[CrazyHedgehog]

You know they made a weird book called "I am the Cheese" .

WOW... I read that book about 27 years ago!!! when I was in school!
Cool twists if I remember....(hasn't the main character gone a little mad?)

[abcat1993]

Yeah, they gave him pills or something to make him go crazy and they keep him locked up. Weird...

[adamanteus]

Nice snake. It isn't a garter snake though. It is a Dekays snake, aka, brown snake. They don't get very big, about 15 inches or so. So that means now you have 3 species of snake around your house. If I were to guess the next species of snake you find will be a ringneck snake. They are common around houses as well.

Dekays are nice snakes to keep. I bred them once, about a hundred years ago, the babies are hard to feed though , they're so tiny, but I enjoyed every minute of it!

[GarterGuy]

Ya, i bet that milk snake is waiting for those garters to mate so it can feast on the young.

And just curious, do all the garter snakes you have seen in your area look like those garters? Because they definetly look like maritimes and on all the range maps I've seen maritimes don't live in NY and only eaterns do. I wonder if maritime is really just a phase of the eastern or what.

I think a lot of the range maps for T.s.pallidulus are out of date or something. For some time everything that I saw too, had said that they didn't range as far south as NY. But I've now seen some stuff stating that they are found in NY and are recognized by biologist there as a native speceis. Maritimes are really no different then Redsideds (T.s.parietalis) in the west....just another subspecies of Common garter (T.sirtalis) that looks some what different.
Roy