You again!

Yesterday morning Jasmine sounded her "Snake! It's a snake!" bark again. This time at least she had the sense to be angry with the non-biting end of the gray rat snake. His mouth was otherwise occupied anyway.



Wayne from Niches asked in previous comments if rat snakes ate eggs. Yes they do.



The blue one he's swallowing is a Mallard egg, which is a bit larger and heavier than a chicken egg.



Pretty amazing.



Tell-tale lump:



While his business end was busy, I sneaked a peek at his belly.



And got a closer look at his scales. I hadn't noticed the slight ridges the other day.



Not too hard to get into the duck pen.



Obviously I need to start removing the duck eggs first thing in the morning. We feed them to the dog so it's not a big loss, I just don't want the snake getting into the habit. If he keeps it up I'm afraid he's going to find the chicken coop.

Of course I'm not really sure if this is the same individual from earlier in the week - not sure how territorial they are. (I tried Googling it but kept coming up with herpetophile Fred from Fragments from Floyd instead.)

We saw another large gray rat snake close to the creek last night. They must be doing well this year.