Cool pic. I've never seen one climb on a door before. Warn your neighbors before one of them decides to get all redneck and chop its head off. :) I think corn snakes are usually a little more brown in color? Kinda looks like a garden/garter snake.

OK, that's weird.

And, he looks like a mighty big snake whatever kind he is.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

First thought was you all should be using that spray Pam stuff on your front door. Then I had to go find my glasses to see that is not the real pupster in the second photo. Is that some tongue action going on in the second photo? Wow!

I respect and appreciate snakes but do not like them at all.

Although we stood there and watched him crawl around the front porch for several minutes and then crawl up the door, I was puzzled by how he did that.

But if you look at the door photo closely, he appears to be supporting himself (herself, itself?) on the lower indentation of the panel and the upper out-dentation of the panel. He fell off shortly after the photo was taken.

(I was walking around the neighbor's front garden with my snare looking for him/her/it. I'm just glad they didn't call the cops on me.)

P.S. And yes, he was a biggun. About 5 feet by my estimation. And he looked to have a full belly. Or two or three, judging from the lumps.

I like Friday snake blogging.

That's a black rat snake, and real beauty. (Corn snakes are the same family but far more colorful, with brick reds and corn kernal scales on their sides.)

They will take birds so there's a down side to having then in the yard, but mice and rats are more common food for them. The babies eat insects, lizards, frogs, and anything that doesn't eat them first.

They make good pets for a year or so, and we've let the kids keep them and then released them back where they came from. Over the years we've gotten where we can identify two of them when we see them. One yard pet is right at six feet long, which is large nowadays. The record length for a black rat snake is well over that though, roughly eight feet.

They tame down pretty quickly if you are careful, move really slowly, and aren't dealing with a pregnant female(cranky things). When first handled, If they get upset they can crank out a musk from the anal vent that is unpleasant, to say the least.

Rat snakes are shaped like a bread loaf in cross section, as opposed to round. the flat scales on the belly allow them to climb trees, rocks, brick walls (and apparently doors) by catching the bark with their scales and moving sluglike up a shear wall.

They lay eggs from a couple of months ago until around about now. I think you'll have a dozen or so little ones very soon.

We were walking out the front door to check out a birds nest under the eave. R went first, didn't even see the snake. I was a few steps behind, immediately saw the snake, said "holy s*%@". Looked at R who was about 3 feet from me, 1-2 feet from the snake. We completely lost interest in the bird's nest.

Snakes and other varmints are reasons I didn't like to garden in Florida. Now I'll have to shake the bushes and plants before trimming, weeding, etc. Geez...

I bet the snake was after the bird's eggs or babies. I had some house wrens nesting in a flower basket hanging on my front door about three years ago. The babies hatched and they were so cute. But, I came home one day to find the nest scattered on the front porch and only a few baby parts left (feet, etc.) Since my place is snake central, I suspected a black snake.

On another note, I had a black snake in my basement that was at least 12 feet long, so I think they get bigger than eight feet.

Snakes swallow their food whole, much like teenaged boys, and leave no trace behind. I suspect yours were victims of a hawk, or even a rat or possum. Hawks leave feathers behind.

It could have been a cat, but I'm not sure how it scaled the door up to the basket. I think if it wasn't a snake, it was another bird of some kind.

I have another wren family nesting in a basket hanging on the wall of the house on the deck.

Grackles are voracious consumers of baby birds and house sparrows (exotics) in certain seasons (now). I have a large pine tree in my yard that is host to a flock every summer, probably 5-6 pairs, for over 10 years. Right after the baby grackles leave the nest (about 3 per pair), they and the parents go on the hunt. I find little pieces of other birds: feet, beaks, intestines, wings. I find 1-2 per day for a short period of time. They will hop up through other trees hoping to scare babies away, then they catch them in flight. It is amazing.

I consider this the natural order of things. Birds have more babies than they can support. In my yard, the sparrows are exotic pests and I am glad to be rid of them. Grackles, I hear, are not doing that well in terms of conservation.

It is important to respect the natural order. The baby birds fed something else. All is well.

Nice picture.

Just last week our dog walked onto our deck with one of these (about the same size) in his mouth. My wife yelled, our dog dropped it and the snake took off up a tree.

I was impressed that our little dog got hold of him.