Enough Already -

Okay so this is like snake #2 in 3 days sitting at my back door.  However get this... I opened my mouth too soon and he must have heard me because the cat sitting next to this snake was MILO.  Yes Milo, the one that I said typically only brings me live lizards, drops them near my feet some place and then walks to the food bowl for his treat in return.  

So now I am terrified to step out onto my patio.  For I see Milo sitting there and I am calling him in and mind you it is 10:00 pm.  He isn't coming and and he just sits there, so I of course go to pick him up in annoyance at him and all of the sudden this brown that blends in with my brown door mat moved just enough to catch my eye.  I look and right next to my right foot all curled up is this snake.  

The first thing I noticed was his head (slightly triangled) and so I freak out.  "OMG, bad snake, bad snake" is all I could seem to say.  So I grab Milo toss him away from the snake.  And sitting on the table from Sunday was the net.  So I grab the next and I toss it over the snake.  He is a feisty thing too. 

I run in and I grab the "thong" from the kitchen and I grab this little bug capture thing Hunter has. I grab the snake and slowly pick it up and put it in the bug capture.  This snake strikes by the way.  I am literately shaking while I am doing this and of course with all the noise I was making, Hunter comes running to see all the excitement. I quickly tell him to shut the door that this is a BAD snake.  

So the snake is inside the bug thing and the bug lid on top is a magnifying glass so here I am studying the snake as he keeps striking at me.  I have to admit the little guy made me jump a couple of times.  Hey man he didn't look so small looking through the magnifying glass.  LOL 

So I go in and I do one of my favorite things, and I think it is one of my favorite things because I love to learn and I feel I learn something new all the time... and that's GOOGLING! So I googled the snake.

As it turns out it is a baby "Brown Water Snake" in which can appear and be confused with the cottonmouth water snakes.  Brown water snakes have all the appearances of that of a poisonous snake, such as the head shape, color and location. 

All this time I am thinking what am I going to do with this "BAD" snake and how did Milo not get bitten by it.  

So of course after my "google research" on the snake, I realized Milo my super brave kitty #2, brought to me a baby brown water snake.  In one of the research things I found it said this:

Conservation Status: Brown watersnakes are common in our region and are not protected. However, like other watersnakes, this species is often mistaken for the venomous cottonmouth because of their coloring, habitat, and slightly triangular head. Sadly, this ignorance leads to the needless killing of many watersnakes annually.

Okay so how in the heck am I to kill a baby brown water snake after reading something like that?  And I don't want to leave it trapped in that bug thing all night either so I can think about it and have bad dreams over it.  So I go get my fancy UGGS, I get the pink gloves, I get the thong... (I need to take a picture of my very fashionable, snake catching gear) and I pick up the snake inside the bug catcher.  I walk it to the back fence and I toss the entire bug catcher, hoping it would open and the snake would escape. NOOOO... of course the lid didn't open.  By now I am about to pee my pants, for it is dark, I can barely see anything and I am thinking "what if there is more snakes where I am standing now".  YIKES!!!  So I then lean over and I quickly take the thongs and tap on the lid causing it to open.  I jumped back and ran inside and locked the door (as if the snake was going to chase me back or something) and I look out the window to see if I can see the snake leave.  I couldn't it was too far away and too dark.  

So there you go.  I didn't kill the baby brown water snake... I learned a thing or two tonight about different types of water snakes and now I need to go give MILO a big fat rub down and some extra treats and hope that he doesn't feel the need to bring me another any time soon and he showed me that he isn't just some lazy lizard catcher after all.  SMILING!