found this snake sun bathing in my garden - anybody know what it is ?
It appearance is different from the other snake pictures posted. It was approx. 1m in length. Thought I share

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Helmut John Fritz

Rat snake

Rat snake indeed! Wow, I can't believe you saw a snake today when it has been so cold. Lucky you!

thank you for clarfying - I'll call her Sarah. She was very patient with me but
after a while she had enough of my advances (even I behaved like a gentleman) and went into hiding.
Just hope that she isn't spotted by less snake friendly people around here. Hineside maybe I should have tried to catch her and bring her to a less populated place.

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Helmut John Fritz

Nice that you behaved like a gentleman. It is good that you didn't try to move her. Some snakes are territorial and will home back to their territories. I don't know for sure in rat snakes, but there is a chance that she would have just tried to find her way back and would have encountered less friendly people on her path. Thanks for sharing the picture with us.

Here's a shot of what looks to be another rat snake, a fairly large one, in O Tsai. Can anyone confirm the ID? Brick in the foreground suggests its size.

Curious about the reddish tint atop the head. Abrasion? Natural color variation?

Thanks!

Yes, looks like another rat snake. Lucky you! I can't see the head well enough to tell what is going on with the red color.

Thanks Nancy. Sorry the shot's not tighter on the head. The snake appeared mid-afternoon Tuesday, in a sloped small garden area, repeatedly trying to enter clefts between boulders. Perhaps this may have abraded the skin on its head. Don't know their moulting cycle, but evidently some are out and about, despite the season. Once on the walk below the garden space, it advanced along the concrete beside the houses until it sensed human presence, then turned tail and fled into a field of tall grass. How large might be the working territory of a snake this size?