Tantilla Nigriceps

Or, what I found in my studio yesterday...common name...
Plains Black Headed Snake

If you read a few posts back you will understand how I feel about snakes.

I picked up a box lid from the floor of my studio and I was stunned by seeing this snake. I think it was stunned as well. We both froze, then I screamed, then it slithered behind one of my wardrobes. So the next thing I did was grab my camera, changed the lens out to my zoom lens...so I wouldn't have to get too close. I waited a while for him to peek out....out came his tiny head, then ever so slightly his body. I aimed the camera and he immediately slithered back. As I stood there very still with the camera ready he came all of the way out and I snapped pictures. He then decided to go back into his hiding spot. Now that I had pictures the next step was to get him out of my studio.

During all of that I had called my hubby, he didn't answer so I text messaged him and told him what was happening and I thought I was going to die....he was in Tucson working, no way he was going to make it home to help me...I was on my own.

I'll talk about this in another post, but my remedy for most anything creepy/crawly is tape. I took a piece of packing tape attached it to the opening of a box with the sticky part up. I placed it as precisely as I could believing he would take the same path as previously. He did, but he was so small he was able to get past the tape and into the hall. Uh oh. I had another box sitting against a wall about 3 feet away and he went under it. Thinking quickly I moved everything that was around that box, I grabbed an empty fedex box and tore off the flaps then a piece of cardboard. I moved the box he was under very quickly, put the fedex box on the floor in front of him holding the other end so that the open end was pushed down in the carpet and guided him into the box with the other piece of cardboard.

WOW I had him and I was still alive!!! He's about 4 inches long and about as round as a pencil. At about that same time hubby calls and I tell him what I've accomplished. He says, "well, put it in something so I can see it when I get home." I tell him that I have it in a box and it will be outside. The box didn't have a lid...so I told him that I would put it in a plastic container with a lid. He says, "put holes in the lid so it can breathe." BREATHE!!!....I can hardly breathe after all of that. Then I took pictures of it in the container.

Hubby came home, looked at it for a while (I know he had thoughts of keeping it...but he knew better) and then he took it to the back of our property and freed it...with a warning not to come back to the house!

My wish is to never see a snake again in my life....there have been too many encounters this year...but if I do happen upon another and have my camera I'll be sure to let you all know!

and, to the person/s who helped me identify this snake....thank you!