Our backyard yellows

Chickens, at least our ornamental chickens, are not overly bright. They either totally ignore the occasional yellow rat snake that finds its way among them or, if the snake happens to be small, they may gather around to peck at it.

Fortunately they are big chickens and the snakes usually just pass through the coop with no harm occurring to either party. Yellow rat snakes (I'll continue to refer to them as Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus even though they are formally known now as Eastern rat snakes, Pantherophis alleghaniensis) are one of the more common backyard snakes here.

Not only are we alerted to their presence by cackling chickens, but I occasionally turn them up beneath coverboards in the yard, amidst plants in the small greenhouse, and we are made aware of those in the big oaks (including ones hiding in clumps of Spanish moss) by the hordes of busybody birds that gather to harass them.

As yellow rat snakes go, the adults of the local ones are not particularly pretty, being of a decided yellow-green hue. They bear four broad and distinct dark lines. The juveniles lack the striping and are strongly blotched. Since we live in an area that has plenty of cotton rats and cotton mice, the rat snakes we do see always look well fed. It's a pleasure to be able to coexist peacefully with these interesting colubrines.

More photos under the jump...

Adult yellow rat snake: Juvenile yellow rat snake in a tree, Alachua County, Fla.; if they visit I feed them:

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.