WATER SNAKES AND BLACK SNAKES

      I first became interested in snakes in my early teens living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Most snakes are camouflaged, elusive and stick to sheltering vegetation, making it an exciting event when one is spotted in its natural habitat.  Over the years, northern water snakes and black rat snakes are the species I most commonly see in Lancaster County, mostly because they are abundant here, and fairly large.  

     Northern water snakes and black rat snakes are non-poisonous and live through much of the United States.  Though harmless to people, they will bite when picked up.  Both kinds have bitten me when I handled them.  The water snakes can be up to five feet long and are a bit chunky.  Black snakes can grow to be over six feet in length.  Both species are active from early April to late October here, but, being cold-blooded, hide away to hibernate through winter.  And both kinds quickly slip away and hide at the first sign of danger; the water snakes flop into water and the black rat snakes slip under logs, rocks and layers of dead, fallen leaves on the ground.     

     Both kinds of these snakes are attractive in their own camouflaged ways.  The water snakes are gray-brown with attractive chestnut bands over the topside from their heads to tails, which blends them into their habitats.  Newly-hatched black snakes have gray and black patterned scales that break-up their forms, which is a kind of camouflage.  But as those young grow and mature, they gradually become black all over, with white undersides.      

     These species of snakes live in different habitats, which helps demonstrate the adaptability and diversity of snakes in general.  Water snakes, as their name implies, live around ponds and waterways of varying sizes.  They are hard to spot sunning themselves to warm up while sprawled out on muddy shorelines and draped over limbs of trees fallen into water along streambanks and pond edges.  

     Black snakes mostly live on woodland floors that are not disturbed by agriculture or other human activities.  They often sun themselves on the limbs of trees and bushes, which is where I see black snakes the most.      

     Water snakes feed on tadpoles, aquatic insects and small frogs, fish and crayfish.  I have seen water snakes with a little fish in their mouths, as they work on swallowing them whole and headfirst.  And I have seen small frogs leaping away in panic along the edges of ponds, followed by rapidly pursuing water snakes.   

     Black rat snakes mostly ingest rodents, making them a friend of knowing farmers.  Some of these snakes live in or near barns where rats and mice might be plentiful.  But these snakes also climb trees to raid birds' nests and eat the eggs or young in those nurseries.  

     Black snakes, and other kinds of snakes, find their prey by constantly flicking their forked tongues in and out to test the air for particles shed by their prey animals.  They follow the paths of their prey that way until the creatures are spotted.    

     Each female water snake gives live birth to ten to sixty pretty, camouflaged young early in September in this area.  The number of young she produces annually depends upon her age and size.  Sometimes in September, I see young water snakes and garter snakes lying on sun-bathed, blacktop roads to warm up.  If I can, safely, I remove them from the road and make sure they are in a safe and proper habitat.       

     Black snakes lay several eggs in sheltered places on woodland floors.  I think newly-hatched black snakes are quite attractive.  I've seen a cluster of baby black snakes under a large slab of fallen tree bark.  And I spotted another group of babies of that species under a fallen log.

     Many water snakes and black snakes, especially the young, fall prey to summering broad-winged and red-shouldered hawks, and permanent resident barred owls, great blue herons, mink, raccoons and other species of predators.  Obviously they are part of several local food chains of who consumes whom.        

     I think northern water snakes and black rat snakes are attractive and interesting.  And they play roles in the natural scheme of things.  They should be respected and left alone in the wild where they belong.

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