[Suvuseh]

I haven't seen any snakes around here for a few years. The last one was in 2004, in a pot in my greenhouse! However, now I've seen two ribbon snakes in less than a week. One of them I saw today and (what are the odds of this!?), it had just caught a Toad! It was just 10 feet from my back door and the toad was going down head first. The toad had puffed itself up nice and big; but, the snake was managing to slowly work it's gaping mouth further down the body. I've never seen this in my life; now, I've seen it twice in one week...here in this thread and in person at my back door! Anyway, I was conflicted about what to do; or not do. I like snakes and I like Toads. But, I decided to help the toad. I figured that the snake would catch another meal soon enough that I wouldn't know anything about; but, if I did nothing, this was the end of days for the toad....and I'd not stop thinking about it and feeling guilty for weeks. I'm a softy that way. It's little arms and legs were frantically flailing about and it was clearly desperately trying to back up out of the snake's mouth. I got all caught up in the point of view of the toad. I imagined that it could be thinking that if it had only taken a left instead of a right at the flower tub by the pond, none of this would've happened, etc., etc. So, I picked up a forked stick from under some nearby bushes and held the snake down. It immediately spit out the toad. When I released it, the snake took off in a flash. The toad had a very gooey, slobery, wet head; but, it was otherwise just fine. It blinked it's eyes and rubbed it's face with it's front feet as if to say "What the hell!!!?" I picked it up and moved it to a new location about 200' away. I was on my way to the greenhouse to water the plants. I know that snakes have to eat too; but, I just couldn't go about my business while I knew there was a perfectly innocent Toad in agony and suffocating as it was slowly swallowed milimeter by milimeter, by the snake. I didn't realise until it was all over that I had my camera with me! Duh! I had grabbed it on the way out because there was something in the greenhouse I wanted to photograph. I could've snapped a couple quick photos before I intervened. I'm still kicking myself for not thinking. 'Guess I'd better not quit my day job and become a wildlife photographer!

I have a feeling that this year will be the year of the snake. I've noticed that the wildlife populations seems to boom and bust from year to year. We had a VERY mild winter and I'm presuming that allowed a lot of snakes and prey animals to survive through until spring. I've "bumped" into 2 snakes this week so far and previously, it was years ago I saw a snake. I'm sure they were out there; but, I was not looking and there were so few that they had no problem staying out of sight. However, if the population is so high this year that they are coming out into the open and showing up in odd places in the middle of the day, I'm going to see them by accident a lot more this year. We'll see. I like to see them; but, I don't like to be startled by them.