Skinks and Snakes

One interesting aspect of our recent snake scare was the nearby skinks. These very well could have been the lure drawing the copperhead snake onto our driveway. Almost as quickly as we spotted the snake we observed one skink biting another one, then carrying it a few feet. This was alarming to see, especially as it was a smaller skink carrying a larger skink. They soon tangled with each other in a twisted pose we presumed was a very slow reptilian mating ritual. This occurred a couple inches from the snake. Had we not interfered the snake might have been eating those skinks. Instead the snake was much more concerned about my presence and it paid no mind to the skinks. After they separated each skink scattered away in a hurry, without either seeming to ever take notice of either their natural predator nor the humans staring at them.

Needless to say, I have been attentive to any movement in the yard now. This weekend I discovered two more snakes. Neither was a copperhead and neither was venomous. First I found what I believe was a baby black racer snake, which I decided to kill because it looked close enough to a copperhead that I wanted my nearby children (attentively watching me and waiting for the outcome) to see so that they did not learn to spend their time discerning copperhead from similar snakes.

Later I found a completely docile and fearful snake hiding under leaves. I decided to capture this one to explain to the kids how clearly different it was from the others. I found a worm snake that was a deep brown on top (nearly black) with a telltale red hue underneath, with a clear line along its side. It was tiny and wrapped itself in a ball, hiding its head as best it could. Lisa actually asked how I knew it was not an earthworm! I explained to the kids this snake acted much different and was colored different than the snake we were afraid of, but they needed to get us whenever they see any snake. Since the most this little guy does is eat worms, I tossed it back into the woods.