There are no poisonous snakes in Maine, but that doesn’t stop some people from being scared half to death of them. I have never been afraid of snakes. Now, spiders are another thing altogether . . .
This is an Eastern Milk Snake, and it is common from Maine to Ontario,
Canada. It eats rodents, birds, eggs, and frogs. Because it is a kingsnake, it uses
constriction to kill its prey and will also eat other snakes. It has a habit of shaking its tail when
threatened, which this one did to me, and so it’s often confused with a
rattlesnake. However, there are no
rattlesnakes in Maine,
and that’s a good thing. This fellow was
quite large, actually very much so, and I wish I could have caught him as a
specimen because they don’t usually get quite this big. He had to be four feet long, perhaps longer,
and that means he must have been at least three years old.
 |
| The Eastern Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum). |
An encounter with a snake is always a momentary occurrence,
and today was no exception. This photo
was the best I could get with only a few seconds to react. Snakes control their body temperature by
basking in the sun or sneaking into the shade when overheated, which is what
this fellow was doing when I found him.
He had clearly had enough sun and was looking for cooler ground, even
though it was only 65 degrees today. I
tried to keep quiet and move slowly, and this made him pause for a second, but he
simply didn’t trust me.
I guess I don’t blame him.
People are not usually very nice to snakes, but I think there’s so much
we could learn from them. For starters,
I’d sure like to know how to shed my skin, wouldn’t you? Imagine growing and changing, as we all do,
and then getting rid of your old façade and creating a whole new one. Imagine a nice, new, shiny you. Perhaps this is something we can already do,
at least figuratively. Anytime we
sincerely wish to change, when we’ve outgrown or become disillusioned with who
we are, we are free to shed our old habits and don new habits. Perhaps we could keep in mind our friends,
the snakes, when we are trying to change, and we could envision ourselves
stepping out of the old, outworn person we once were and into the new person we
now are.
It’s something to think about anyway. Perhaps we should be nicer to snakes and they might teach us
their secrets.
