Snake alive!

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to hear someone or something pounding on your window screen right by your bed!! That's what happened this morning at 2 a.m. Immediately, we thought CAT. But we'd never heard any of them do THAT before. So James pulled up the blinds and peered outside.

CAT trying to get SNAKE.

Outside we go in our pajamas. I got to our window first and found Gabe, one of the boy cats, perched on the "cat walk" (brick exterior that goes halfway up our house), staring at the corner of our window. I shooed him, and you'd have thought I kicked him 10 feet up in the air! He shot off the wall like a rocket...I evidently startled him a LOT. With a flashlight, we finally located the young snake, curled up between the window and the screen. It'd have to come OUT if we were gonna get any more sleep. Back inside we went.

Armed with gloves and a towel, James opened the window and corralled the snake. I groggily shot some photos, which didn't turn out great. But well enough to tell more about the snake's identity during daylight hours. Looks to me like a Texas rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri), which are aggressive (as you can see by the photos) but non-venomous. I wrote a short article on the species that appeared in the February 2008 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

James carried the guy out to the sanctuary, then we went back to bed.