The Snake

It was a sunny, relatively warm spring day, with a lawn verdant and lush from April and May showers, I was moseying up our back hill to take a look at the vegetable garden. As I made my way up the hill, I was startled by a snake that was sunning itself on part of the rose bed limestone rock wall. It was a large garter snake.

That large snake sat in the sun along the top edge of the limestone wall, as if a serpentine belt, but its large head and certain body sections giving away its true nature. Given its position on the wall and its serpentine nature, and the fact that part of its long back end (tail?) was still in the wall I estimated it to be over three feet in length. A common garter snake grows to about 34", which, if I am not a few inches off in my estimate, makes this snake rather uncommon. I chose to not try and pick it up to measure. I thought it would be too quick for me. 

Snake, as I first saw it

I was correct in its quickness, as another day as I saw it, it quickly moved away from me. The snake does like to startle people.

About a week after I saw the snake, the wife and I were in different parts of the backyard, she near the south edge of the stone wall, and me at the north edge of the pond. As I was meandering along the area between two flower beds I heard a loud screech from the wife, and I asked her what was wrong. That warm day, she was in bare feet in the yard, and was walking up the hill and came across the snake sitting in the dense grass, and had almost stepped on the snake. I can only imagine what would have occurred if she had stepped on the snake and its head coiled back to stare and hiss at her with its long red tongue catching her ankle or leg. That likely would have been worse than the time I was cleaning up some stuff in a small storage building and a mouse jumped out and ran across my hand and up my arm. With a foot on its sinewy body, the snake may well have felt threatened and bit the wife. I have to think a bite would have produced a greater reaction from Land Girl. 

I suspect that both Land Girl and I belong to the half of the population that, according to audiology.org, feel "anxious" about snakes. I am surprised it is not a greater percentage. Snakes primarily use their long tongue to sense their environment, but they can hear. Although they can hear, it a limited range. That range, however, is said to include the ability to hear a human scream.

Snake, shortly after the wife almost 
stepped on it

The question is, when my wife screamed, did the snake hear her and feel insulted? The snake was hissing after I made my way over to see the situation, or was its hiss and continually sticking its tongue out a way for it to measure current threat level, or stand guard as a way for us to keep our distance?

Of course, just because a snake hears a scream, does it interpret a scream as a reaction to a threat, injury or danger? That audiology report certainly seems to think they understand English, rather than the Harry Potter parsel tongue, as it concludes by saying: "Even if you don’t like them, please don’t insult them, at least not near them."

Snake hissing with tongue out

We have also seen the snake in the butterfly bed, which is the upper part of the rose bed. This means, that when it comes to work in this flower bed, particularly weed it, I have to watch out for the snake sneaking among the dense plants. I suspect the snake lives somewhere in that wall we built over thirty-three years ago. 

The moral of the story is one can be anxious about snakes, but apparently be careful what you say and screech near them. You may just set up a bigger defensive guard. As for me, as I mosey around the yard, particularly near the rose and butterfly bed, I keep my eyes on the ground for the snake.