Scott Pearce.com

Rainbow told me something was up. Dogs will tell you a lot if you are willing to pause long enough to listen.

She came to the sliding screen door that separates my home office from the downstairs patio with a nervous expression. At first I ignored her but she was insistent, raising her ears up halfway and wrinkling her forehead, occasionally shaking her head towards her right and pointing.

Imagine my surprise when I slid the door open, poked my head out and turned left – to see a huge snake, several feet long, trapped by a roll of garden netting! I jumped so quickly that all of my clothes were left in a pile behind me. Once I put them back on I went and grabbed my camera and Lana.

“Hey, Ms. May! You need to come look at this – it’s something you haven’t seen before in our yard, and I don’t think you’re going to forget this anytime soon!” She paused her preparations for the Del Mar Junior Lifeguard program to join me, grabbing her iPhone to snap the photo below a few seconds after I took the first one in this post.

OK, there’s a big snake in my yard, trapped by garden netting. Now what? Looking at 14 year-old Lana reminded me that I’m the grownup and ought to Take Charge, seeing as how I Know What to Do.

Right.

Carefully, gently, I grabbed the roll and slowly rolled up the netting as I raised the whole thing. The snake pulled back with remarkable strength, trying to get out of the net. As I started to raise a big part of the serpent’s body off the ground I noticed just how strong and heavy it really was. Suddenly the snake’s head popped free from the plastic netting and the snake was free and wholly back on the concrete. It slithered off as fast as it could!

Out of sight, out of mind. Great job! Well done!

Research discloses that this snake likely is a model representative of Arizona Elegans Occidentalis, otherwise known as the California Glossy Snake. For additional reptile coverage in these pages, see here, here, here, here, here, and especially here.

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