Team-BHP - Snakes!

I'm happy to inform that the snake catcher came and took away the snake. It took only few minutes to catch it.
As per him the age is about 1 year and he says there could be other siblings roaming around. My neighbour saw one yesterday and we thought that this is the same one. I'll have to be careful, usually I don't take lights when taking the car/bike in the evening (sometimes its pitch dark). Need to warn my kid too.

Great photo, beautiful snake!

Let an expert take care of it.

Crossposted! Glad to know that you did. The only time we had a snake catcher here, here put the snake in a cotton bag, for release in forest near where he lived... on the bus.

You never know what you might be sitting next to!

Quote:

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno (Post 4283409)

Wow, that's an awesome snap. :thumbs up
How long was it ? Not able to gauge from the photo. Around 4 feet ?

Quite small, should be around arms length (below 1 meter).

Attached 2 more photos (I think this give the size)

Slithering out after seeing me (or to say hearing me/sensing me)

That's the hand of the snake catcher

Had this visitor near the hen-coop couple days ago. I first mistook it for a cobra because the head looked flat - later saw it was because it had something in it's mouth - a frog?. Too many variants/colour of the rat-snake around - gets confusing. I hope I identified this correctly as a rat snake.

Since I didn't want to kill a rat-snake, I tried to shoo it away. But it got stuck in the net. Had to cut a part of the net & throw it in the water-logged field. Don't know if it escaped or the turtles / fish / birds in the field ate it. Next day the net was there, but no snake.

Snakes!-imageuploadedbyteambhp1510808220.070435.jpg

The hens didn't seem unduly worried & came close to investigate. 😊

Snakes!-imageuploadedbyteambhp1510808199.393656.jpg

We had a visitor yesterday too. It got stuck in a concrete corner at the bottom of our terrace steps. The grill gate has a solid plate at the bottom to deter rats and it could not get out. Poor thing was trying to get into a hole in the concrete (originally made by ants but now about an inch big, but not much of it would fit. Eventually I realised to... just leave the gate open for it to get out, and it did.

Elsewhere suggestion that it is a chequred keel back. Any other opinions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4306783)

Elsewhere suggestion that it is a chequred keel back. Any other opinions?

Yes, that's a chequered keel back. They are harmless, mostly found near ponds, rivers or other water bodies. It must have come in near some water source. Do you have any outdoor water body in your garden?

I remember, some 5-6 years ago, a similar specimen was found in my garden. It had come because we have a big built up water tank (called a 'houd' in Marathi) in our garden; and in the heart of concreted Pune city, it found that big 'houd'; a big solace in summer heat!

Did it disappear by itself or did you release it anywhere nearby?

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.A.G.7 (Post 4307965)

We have a flooded plot next door in which all sorts of things have lived over the years.

We "released" it from its concrete corner, which it didn't seem able to get out of. We just left the steel gate open for it. It (supposedly the same) was spotted again today strolling in our garden. The maid called, but I was too late to see it. If it wants to get back next-door, there are plenty of things growing up our side of the wall.

We have no ponds or open water our side. We have a cesspite, in which nothing would want to live; we have fresh-water underground sump, which I don't think a snake could get out of it it fell in; we have a grey/rain-water pit which we have to pump out. It is closed, and the pump would eat anything that got in.

Thanks for the ID confirmation. I don't have any problems with having snakes around. My only reservation is that I have no experience how to handle them. This one was certainly more afraid of us than we could have been of it.

First of all I have no idea why am I reading these posts at night as snakes are the only thing in this world that scares the living soul out of me. I too had a close call with a reptile a few weeks ago.

It was a Sunday and dad assigned me with the job of washing his car which I did very well as I knew I would get to take his car out afterwards. After I completed the washing, polishing which took a whopping 3 and half hours, went out for the much deserved 10km tea drive. Being a Sunday, there were less cars on the road and I was enjoying the moments of the drive. As I was passing through a road which had dense tress on both the sides, I saw a black rope like thing almost a metre and half long lying on the road from a distance. The shiny scales on the body further cleared my doubts on what the thing really was. I almost came to a halt at the side of the road. From the opposite side there was a tuk tuk auto van approaching, the one without any doors. Seeing the auto van approaching the snake jumped right at the driver side but failed to climb as the driver swerved the van at the right moment. It only horrifies me when I think what would have happened to the passengers and the driver if the thing went onboard the moving vehicle as I was watching safely from a distance. In a matter of moments a fun drive turned into a horrible one :eek:

Entirely possibly that the snake might have had bad experience[s] with auto/mini-van drivers. Many of us have! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4308004)

we have a grey/rain-water pit which we have to pump out. It is closed, and the pump would eat anything that got in.

There has to be ground-level entrance, to drain the garden when it rains. I really hope no snake ever gets in there! I am fairly pro-snake. And to those that aren't: remember that that they eat rats!

Snakes!

This reminds me one of our encounters with a snake. We were travelling in Spiti region by a hired sumo back in 2009. Though it was a rented sumo, the driver became a nice friend and allowed me to drive his sumo frequently. After a cold night at Nako village, when I started sumo in the morning, there was a big noise from radiator fan. It was scary. I jumped out of the vehicle and opened the bonnet. Sumo's radiator fan was full of blood and there was a dead snake tangled in it.

I was clueless. After some time, the drive came and explained to me that in cold places one should always open the bonnet and check the engine bay before firing the engine. I knew that but I was careless. It was my mistake so I helped our driver to clean the engine bay and someone clicked this photograph.

This happened a couple of months back. I reach my home at 4 AM in the morning after a drive from Chennai and see this rat snake stuck in the nets of our garden pond.

Looks like it had come there for its dinner (frogs and fishes on the pond) and got stuck after consuming the meal.

We cut open the nets carefully and let it go off in the morning. Thanks to a healthy population of these around our community, the rodents are kept in check. On a side note, I thought snakes were slimy to touch but it wasn't - this was dry!