Call me unreasonable, but ever since my 83-year-old mother’s rattlesnake bite outside of Golden, CO, last summer, I get the shivers around snakes. This one didn’t want to move when I drove up to it on our John Deere Gator by the lane crossing over one of our irrigation tiles. I had this terrible feeling I would pin the snake under a tire, and it would somehow whip its head up and get me. So I found a very long tree branch and nudged it along. It lifted its head and stuck out a forked tongue, then started a slow slither. My internet searching matches best to the Great Basin Gopher Snake. According to Wikipedia, gopher snakes eat insects, lizards, birds and their eggs, and small mammals (gophers, etc.) Your feedback on whether this is “just” a gopher snake would be most welcome.
See our other wildlife:
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