Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Unexpected Sunday visitor

Lest anyone think Raccoon Creek Community's site is just a lot of pretty flowers and trees, take a look at this fellow. When we returned from a group hike on Sunday morning, we found what I believe to be a black rat snake.

See the entry for the black rat snake on the Center for Reptile and Amphibian Conservation and Management's web site. It is also called cow snake, chicken snake, timber snake, black snake, and black climber. This last name makes a lot of sense since we found the snake lazily lying on a warm card table we had been using for our meetings.

By the time I got his picture he had been spooked from the table and was moving away from us. I couldn't believe he had gotten up to the table. He had to climb either a smooth metal table leg or, more likely, the shorter leg of a camp chair and from there up to the table. A good picture of the black rat snake's climbing ability was found on another web site.

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