Imagine my surprise when my dog did a big straight up leap on the sidewalk outside of our house…… “What are you doing, you silly boy?”  Y I K E S!

Luckily, we were coming back from our afternoon walk. I brought the dogs into the house, ran for the camera and decided on a yard stick to pick up this wee feisty one.

When I got close to it, the snake reared up, it’s head looking triangular…..  mouth open…..

Great, a small viper on my door step.  Thank you, Lord for cold temperatures making for a slow, very small snake… Here I’d been thinking all the snakes were safely tucked away for the winter.

I didn’t have too much trouble getting it to balance on the yardstick.  See it’s triangular head?  I couldn’t wait to deposit this guy in the thick grasses along the marsh so I could run back to the house and get out the Reptiles and Amphibians guide book.

You can click on the images for a larger view.

Look Ma, no hands!  What a show off.  I love how it’s tail curls around it’s body.

Ooops, it fell off the yardstick and immediately wanted to fight. Nice mouth, huh?

There you go, little feisty one. Slide down into the dense grass and get warm!

I looked at the guidebook under venomous snakes but I couldn’t make a clear i.d. I thought perhaps it was a young cottonmouth but the tail coloring was all wrong for it’s age.

I sent an email to my friend and Lowcountry Institute’s education director, Tony Mills.
He loves snakes and reptiles and knows them cold!

Let me introduce you to a non-venomous, young
Yellow Rat Snake, Elaphe ovsoleta quadrivittata!  Thanks, Toni!

My guide book says it a common and characteristic snake of the great river swamps of the south. Also that when cornered in the field, many of these snakes literally stand up and fight, with the fore portion of the body reared upward, the head drawn back in an S-curve, and the mouth held open in readiness to strike!  Yup, this little guy had these mannerisms down pat!

Amazing how one can ignore the cold at times like these 🙂