|
| |
George is Back!
| Pardon the pictures, I lost the
good ones. I will get some better ones up as soon as I can get around to it. This is an updated picture of George. I always worry every year if he will return or not. There are a lot
of people around here that would kill him on site. It is fortunate for George that the couple lots to the west of us are still wooded and not really that well suited for developing. There are around 12 acres behind us
that is one parcel with one house on it, and the road on that side is a couple hundred yards back so George isn't likely to crawl that far and get in the road. I just happened to see him out the window one day a couple
weeks ago crawling away from the house and headed back to the wooded section on the back of the yard. I grabbed the camcorder and headed out to get some film of him. True to form, as soon as I walked up George just
stopped and lay there. I know snakes aren't the most intelligent creatures around, but I think George recognizes me. Probably just a familiar smell, but recognized just the same. The reason I feel that way is because
anytime I walk up on George he just kind of freezes until he knows that I have seen him. No matter how close I get to him he doesn't move and he has never acted in any aggressive manner. On the other hand I think he
recognizes Timber also. Timber is my buddy, about seventy pounds of wolf/chow/shepard mix and he would be deadly on the wildlife if he were allowed to run free. Timber stays in the house all of the time except for when
we put him out on his run out wire. The set-up is a fifty foot length of wire with a twenty foot length of chain that slides on it. When you take Timber out the door if George is around he beats a hasty retreat. That is
the only time I have seen George move at more than a fast turtles pace. Maybe George has had a run in with Timber before, or one of the half dozen or so dogs that people let run loose in the neighborhood. We do have a
town leash law, but if you report a dog running loose they tell you , "you catch it, we'll come and get it'" Now that's a lot of help. This is the same town that has an ordinance against rubish piles and
overgrown yards, but they will write you a ticket for that. If they see George they will probably kill him because they specifically list snakes as vermin that they do not want living in the town limits. |
After George
went on his merry way I went out and measured the distance from where his head was to where his tail was in this picture. It measured just a little over six feet. Since George was not stretched out in a straight line I
think you could add six inches to that and make George around six and a half feet long.
 Can you see him in the picture? That long black line gong past the tree is George. You can see that he doesn't exactly stand out and would be easy to walk up on unexpectedly if you don't pay
attention where you are walking. It does make the heart beat a lot faster when you look down and see that your next step is going to be on top of a snake the size of George. This may be the only
time I will see him this summer. He used to come around more often, or at least be out and about in the yard more often, before we got Timber. I think because of Timber he doesn't spend much
time in the yard anymore. Last year I only saw him once all summer, but I did see another black snake about 3 feet long and a king snake about 3 feet long also. As a matter of fact I saw another black
snake coming out from under the house about a week after George came out. Unfortunately it was about nine at night and I was taking Timber out to do his thing. I didn't see the snake in time to keep Timber from
going out the door and when I pulled him back in and looked back out the snake had already gone back under the house. I haven't seen him since, but I suspect that later on he came on out and went hunting.
Maybe this is George junior. I admit I was kind of surprised to find another black snake coming out from under the house because I thought they were somewhat territorial. Once in a while there will be a king
snake or ground snake in the yard, but they seem to be just passing through. Coming out from under the house to me indicates living here. Maybe in twenty more years the new one will be as big as George is
now. Of course you have to wonder how large George will be by then. And I wonder how long a black snake lives. Will George even be here in twenty years. provided that he stays
out of the road. I would
really like to be able to buy the couple of wooded lots to the west of us to make sure that they remain undeveloped, at least in my lifetime. However considering that I have been out of work with severe back
problems for over a year and a half it isn't likely to happen anytime soon. |
| Below are a couple more pictures of George. These are after I thought he had moved on down to the
woods and I let Timber out to run for a little while. George had stopped just the other side of the azaleas in the picture above and he knew it immediately when Timber came out. He coiled up in a little pile and had
the tongue going full blast sniffing the air. I think it shows in the pictures just how black and shiny George was looking on this day. I am guessing that he had just shed his skin in the last few day. He almost looked
wet and there wasn't even a bit of dust on him even though he had just crawled across a mostly dirt area of the yard. I hope George will be around with us for many more years to come. We're keeping our fingers
crossed. These pictures were taken the end of May, 2000. |
Well, I caught George Jr. coming back home after hunting. He was trying to get back under the house by
going through the little crack around the door to the crawlspace. I don't know if he got his head in the crack or not, but that big bulge that was his supper wasn't going to make it.
 I was working on the lawnmower on the patio and just happened to look down toward the other end of the house and
noticed something down there that looked a little different. I walked about half way to him and realized that it was George Jr. I went and got the camcorder and shot some video of Jr. This is the
first time that I had a chance to get the new snake on video. Actually I didn't realize that there was a second snake living under the house until about a week before when I caught Jr. coming out from
under the house one night. After I got him on video I went back to working on the lawnmower. After a while Jr. gave up on getting in under the door and started crawling along the house toward
the patio. I knew he was coming up to the vents on the patio where he could get under the house. I didn't know if he would be able to get through the vent after he got there though. Once George tried that with a
full stomach and his bulge was so big he couldn't get through the vent. Ann was gone to the store and I was hoping she would get home before Jr. got to the vent because she hadn't seen him yet. She came in
just before Jr. got to the vent so she got to see him. It didn't seem to phase him a bit that he was crawling straight toward us to get to the vent so he could go under the house. When he did go through he had to
wiggle a little to make it through, but he went on in. Who knows we will see him again, or George for that matter. Well, there are a couple more months of warm weather, maybe they will show up again before
cold weather sets in. |
To check out some books that will help you attract wildlife to your backyard go to our
Backyard Wildlife Books page or you might want to go to this page with Books About Snakes .
  For general information you may want to check out the Encyclopedia of Snakes or you may be more interested in
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator. |
|