Snake in Maplewood

Found this guy in the pool!  Is it a garter snake?  Probably a bit more than a foot long.

Looks like a DeKay, but I think they changed the name to common brown, or something like that.  We used to find a lot when we lived near Clinton School.

I’m a few doors down from Clinton school 

They're cute and pretty harmless unless you're an earthworm.

Or a goldfinch?

mrincredible said:

Or a goldfinch?

 I think it is very unlikely that a dekay could ever eat a goldfinch.  They tend to max out at 15 inches.  Earthworms and grubs are about the largest prey they can handle 

I posted this visitor to my garden a few months ago. Very handsome snake.

When I lived there, I had a pretty big guy in my garden that I thought, after research, was a black rat snake if I remember right.

jonesey said:

When I lived there, I had a pretty big guy in my garden that I thought, after research, was a black rat snake if I remember right.

 Seems like the would be a little more prevalent here considering the abundance of sustenance. Anyone know where I could buy one?

We brought one in as a pet at one point about 20 years ago , (oops Joy, below), but it escaped from it's lodgings while being fed, and crawled up from the kitchen to the bedroom closet, which was a bit of a surprise; so we gave it away to our neighbors, who reported that it lived happily with them for many years.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm sick and tired of these monkey fighting snakes in this Monday to Friday Maplewood.

Generally speaking - due to the fact that there are people out there that will either: kill it, try to make it a pet or try to handle it and stress it out - in light of all that - please don't name the location. 

joy said:

Generally speaking - due to the fact that there are people out there that will either: kill it, try to make it a pet or try to handle it and stress it out - in light of all that - please don't name the location. 

 I handled the ones we found because they loved to sun themselves on the sidewalk and we had about 10 neighborhood cats who thought they made great playthings.  The number of dead half chewed dekay snakes we would find made me decide that handling them to relocate them to undergrowth was probably worth it.