Using the harsh cries of red-shouldered hawks, the excited cawing of crows, and the strident vocalizations of bluejays as an excuse to take a break from yard work, Patti and I walked across the street to see what was causing the avian uproar.

The birds were all gathered on the uppermost limbs of a big live oak. Responding to their distress calls, more birds were winging our way. The tree was tall and fully leafed. Although the birds, hopping and flying from limb to treetop limb, might have had a great view, we needed binoculars.

Binocs were found and Patti was the first to make out a sinuous shape -- a snake shape -- amidst the leaves of a slender outermost branch.

It was a yellow rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus, a big one, and the fact that it was being dive-bombed by a host of varied bird species seemed to bother it not at all. Eventually I snagged the binoculars and found the snake in the branches.



Birds screamed, dive-bombed, hopped about, retreated, and then began the ritual all over. The snake had coiled within a network of small diameter branches that the birds could neither land on nor penetrate while awing. After a half hour or so, as evening drew nigh, the avian horde decided they had better make nighttime preparations and all left.

Ten minutes after the hub-bub died down the snake began its descent. With the show now over and necks aching from craning upwards, we also returned to our temporarily forgotten yard work.

Yellow rat snakes are no stranger to our neighborhood. We usually see several a year and are led to many by the excited calls of birds. The snakes depicted here are of typical color and are from our backyard. The larger one could actually be the protagonist in this tale.

More photos after the jump...