YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! I spotted my first snake today!! After all these years I finally spotted a black racer just after sunset. I got up close to be sure what kind it was and he stopped dead in his tracks. Remember they are just as scared of us as we are of them. As long as you leave them be they wont bother you. Now I am sure many will disagree but that is rather true. Most cases of snake bites involve some sort of disturbance to them. Though the disturbance may have been unintensional. I mean how did you know there was a snake under that overturned canoe next to the pond. As a child I found myself in an emergency room shortly after turning over a canoe. No not a snake bite, I was raised around snakes it was routine for me to use a large stick to turn over the canoe. Well that day the stick I was using snapped and went into my leg from the downward force of the canoe. A common phrase: "well I just stepped over the brush pile and he struck". Well you startled him when you came across. So, Yeah I get it. But if you see one in plain view and just avoid going near it then you will be OK. Now I know that may not hold true for all species but for most that is true. So why should all snakes be killed just because they are a snake? I ask that because thats what I hear from a LOT of people! "well any snake is a dead snake in my yard" a phrase that makes me cringe. A friend of mine many years ago brought a snake he had killed bragging about the copperhead. When I told him he had killed a corn snake he just couldn't believe it. I had to get a book out to show him. I never understood how the copperhead got that name when the corn snake has a lot more copper color than the copperhead. I don't know, does "copper" refer to something other than color? I suppose it has the darker color of tarnished copper sometimes but not usually on the head. Those darker colors are usually more mid body. Well I will have to keep quite about the snake. I don't want my neighbors to know they would probably freak.

Jonesella - NO! Not poisonous. They will bite if you pick them up wrong, and it hurts, but they have no venom. Racers eat rodents and insects and small birds. Good things to have around your landscape. Not so good around a chicken coop if you have tiny chicks, but you can use screens and keep them out until the chicks are bigger.

Since I haven't posted in a while and since the new year is here, I thought I'd post my 2010 snake totals just for fun. Not as many snakes in 2010 as in 2009, but still a pretty good snake year. My 2010 snake total (570 snakes, 81 venomous): 123 Orange-Striped Ribbon Snakes, 116 Intergrade Eastern/Red-Sided Garter Snakes, 69 Western Cottonmouths, 64 Eastern Yellowbelly Racers, 47 Northern Water Snakes, 41 Prairie Ringneck Snakes, 30 Broad-Banded Water Snakes, 13 Midland Brown Snakes, 11 Yellow-bellied Water Snakes, 7 Black Rat Snakes, 6 Diamondbacked Water Snakes, 6 Western Worm Snakes, 6 Intergrade Northern/Prairie/Mississippi Ringneck Snakes, 6 Osage Copperheads, 5 Prairie Rattlesnakes, 3 Speckled Kingsnakes, 2 Flatheaded Snakes, 2 Great Plains Rat Snakes, 2 Bullsnakes, 2 Wandering Garter Snakes, 2 Red Milk Snakes, 2 Eastern Garter Snakes, 1 Timber Rattlesnake (western phase), 1 Northern Redbellied Snake (gray phase), 1 Eastern Hognose Snake, 1 Western Earth Snake, 1 Rough Green Snake.

Like I said Mitchell. Just let me know when you want to come up and I'll be your guide. I know a place in Indiana near Champaign for Fox Snakes and Smooth Greens. Dave