July 15, 2017  - “SPLATT”

        “Hey, wake up.”

        “Why?”

        “I got to tell you what just happened.”

       

        “What?”

        “I was sitting out by the shed and just dozing off when I noticed a flash in front of me and heard “Splatt” like a baseball coming into a leather mitt.   I opened my eyes and looked around and just in front of me on the ground I see a green snake.  

        “Snake?”

        “Green, little fella – kind’a pretty, come out to see him.”

        “How big was it?”

        “Thin, 8 to 12 inches.  He sort of acted stunned for a moment, then lifted his head up and licked the air at me and moved off toward the ivy. He must have fallen out of the tree above me.”  He was like a little boy, all excited with his find.

        “Come on.” He added.

        I was having an old fashioned “lie down” in the cool and here I was being rousted out by my dear husband to see a snake.  Snake, snake, here, there and everywhere – it’s almost as bad as the News – Russians and Russian collusion on every channel.

        “Oh, all right.” I acquiesced.

        I got up from my comfortable spot and I slipped on my garden shoes and headed out towards the shed.  We cautiously go out to where the snake was last seen.  A few moments later my husband spots him draped out of the cement blocks which are the foundation of the big slate table.  I tentatively inch forward and stop in my tracks.

        “It almost doesn’t look real – that lime green.  Not much bigger around than a pencil.” I announce so surprised at the vivid lime green.

        The green snake noticed us and reared back to look at us.  It was the typical standoff – us 3 feet way and it wanting to get away.

        I will admit, I wasn’t as frightened by it compared to the 5 to 6 foot black snake of a week or two ago.  Familiar with paper sizes 8 ½ x 11 and 8 ½ by 14 – I visually calculated him to be about 12 to 14 inches.  I critically examined him – visually of course – noting the long thin tail and the dark eyes.  That lime green, almost the same color as a V-neck sweater I own and the very shade of green of the two-tone Liriope which I have a lot of.  I understood why my husband was so persistent that I come out to look.  I’d never seen one before.

        My husband showed me the spot where it had landed and I looked overhead at the slender arching branch from a nearby tree.

        “How did he get up there?” He asked.

        “That’s simple – the poison ivy growing up that tree gives him a ridge to slither on, or whatever you call their motion – climb?  I wonder what he was eating.” I answered.

        I moved my chair about 12 feet from the overhanging limb and sat down in the shade being able to look up at where he had fallen from and was constantly looking out of the corner of both eyes at every leaf that moved near my feet. I love nature and sitting out, but up-close-and-personal “snake” days are not included in that delight.

        “Earlier I was down on all fours working on that project and if it had landed while I was down there -” He didn’t finish the sentence only shook his head.

       

I was thinking, if I had been sitting out here with you this afternoon it would have been my luck that it would have fallen on me and I would have probably had a heart attack right then and there.  Just the thought of the possibility made me shudder.

“I wonder what kind he is.” I pondered out loud.

Moments later my husband got up to check on him where we had seen him last.

“Grass snake I think . . . he’s gone.”

“Well, I had a really good look at him; I’ll look him up in my snake book.”

Later I did look him up and he is a rough greensnake (Opheodrys aestiuvs) which is nonvenomous.  Usually 14 to 16 inches in length for an adult. Slender and graceful with keeled scales. Excellent climbers and spend most of their time above ground. [Well that is just peachy  . . . one day I may be sitting under a tree and have one drop on me . . .]   Eats insects and spiders, . . . and slugs.  YIPEE, eats slugs!!

The greensnake kills with a strike instead of constriction.  That is what he was doing; he was curling back his upper body in a striking pose.  I guess we were too close.    And, the snake book advises that the cousin, the “smooth” greensnake (Opheodrys vernalis) is sometimes seen in North Carolina and it is hard to tell the difference.

I guess I don’t need to know the difference between the rough and the smooth.  I will just call it a greensnake that hangs out in trees and occasionally “Splats” to the ground.