On Thursday Jennifer came home to discover a snake on our porch.  She called me at work to tell me about it: it was light brown with darker brown patches, and it had crawled into the plastic bin I use for charcoal ash and clippings from the garden greens.  She was worried about its safety and asked me to come home.

I know rather little about herpetology, but I looked at it carefully and looked online to try to track down the species.  My best guess it that it is a California Lyre Snake, a venemous species.  Our little friend was considerate enough to find a place to sleep that had a lid: I replaced the lid, taped it shut, and drove out to the foot of a nearby hiking trail.  A couple minutes along I walked about twenty feet off the trail and carefully pulled it out with a stick (urging it out had failed to yield success.)

The snake certainly felt threatened on our porch, coiling and flattening its head and occasionally trying to strike.  I’m sorry that the creature was stressed like this, but it was a treat to get to see this animal up close and help it get back to safety.

Sat, 26 Jan 2002 00:07:33 +0000
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