Great post Leah, and what a beautiful snake. I am always pleased to hear someone who has an appreciation for these wonderful creatures.
It's ironic because I have been writing a piece on the benefits of all snakes and my experiences with them since I was a boy way back in the 60's. I grew up surrounded by dairy farms and the farmers would pay me for all the black snakes I would catch and release in their barns. Like you say they are an excellent form of rodent control.
My grandmother used to say, "A black snake under your front porch is worth a thousand dollars."
Snakes will also eat insects like grasshoppers, beetles and grub worms, basically anything they can catch and swallow.
There are many misconceptions about snakes and one is that they will attack humans, this is just not true, at least of north American snakes. Reality is snakes, like most wild animals fear us more than we fear them.
Snakes bite for one of only two reasons, food and defense. Since they cannot eat a human they will only bite us in defense. Most human snake bites occur either because someone is handling them, they were stepped on, or they are backed into a corner and have no retreat. A snake, again like most wild animals use flight or retreat as a first line of defense.
Venomous snakes will often stand their ground when encountered hoping you will pass and leave them be. I once encountered a copper head who coiled as if to say this is my spot go away, however, when I gently prodded him with a stick he retreated under a rock and let me pass.
We have many water snakes on our place because of the creek. To observe them I have to sneak up on them because they will head for the water at the first sight of me. Once I came up on one unawares and startled him so badly that he jumped about two feet and into the creek.
I have a spiritual connection with snakes and will stop whatever I am doing when I see one, and will halt traffic to allow one to get out of the road, often getting verbal abuse and one finger salutes.
Leah Sattler wrote:
red to black venom lack
red to yellow kill a fellow
This refers to which color meets which in the pattern displayed onthe snake in question.
I will add that this poem is to help distinguish the coral snake from the scarlet king snake which is non-venomous but at first glance looks just like a coral snake.
Sorry to be so long winded but as you can tell I am passionate about snakes, oh and I like spiders too.
The pic is a friend I met last summer and is a variety of water snake.