Snakes

One of the nice things about wandering around in the bush here on Vancouver Island is that there are no poisonous snakes. There are only 4 kinds of snake on the island and three of them are Garter Snakes - like the one pictured above, a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake, a name nearly as long as he is. The fourth kind of snake we have here is quite rare - I've never seen one. It's called a Sharp=tailed Snake and has a very limited range. I lived in Africa for many years, on the hot and humid west coast. In my first years there I was living in a rain forest village and any time I went for a walk in the forest I had always to be on the lookout for snakes because there were many that were deadly poisonous and quite aggressive - cobras and mambas, etc. The harmless little fellow above was photographed near Esquimalt Lagoon in April 2010.

Western Terrestrial Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans)

While riding along the shore of Esquimalt Lagoon yesterday I was so busy scanning the horizon for sea-birds that I nearly drove over this little snake as he was crossing the road. In fact, it was such a near miss that I stopped to go back and check to see if he was OK. I'm happy to say I hadn't harmed him and he stayed around long enough for me to capture the above photo. According to an informative article by the Comox Valley Naturalists Society there are 4 species of snake resident on Vancouver Island, three of which are garter snakes. None of them are poisonous or aggressive. This is the Western Terrestrial Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans), characterized by the yellow stripe down his back and brown diamonds on his sides. Garter Snakes are the most widely distributed North American reptile. These are generally pretty small snakes although I have seen some more than 3 feet (1 meter) long. The snake above was about 18 inches (50 cm.) long.