Oh that is just like a missionary story I have told over and over to the Sunday school children. I always bring my(toy) stuffed 8ft snake in to wrap around my shoulders when I tell it. It was about a naughty snake that kept sneaking into a henhouse even after his wife told him of the danger. After the eggs kept disppearing the little boy and uncle who owned the hen, hard boiled one egg and snuck it into the nest. The snake gobbled it and feeling quite proud with what he was getting away with tried to get back out the hole in the chicken coop when WHAP!!!!! The morale was Obey and DONT BE GREEDY!

Many snakes 'rattle' their tail as a threat. Just look thorugh pictures of your native snakes until you find a matching one. Long and skinny and dark = black racer?

if you have the pic in photobucket or Picasa, they give you the code to use (pick the HTML code). http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw251 identifies all the common "black snakes" in Florida. Several of them have light chins, and none of those are poisonous.

Yep, its a nonvenomous common water snake (Nerodia sipedon). The exact subspecies of Nerodia sipedon is probably Nerodia sipedon pleuralis (Midland Water Snake).