Snake On The House

What a preposition!

Stepping out on porch to check out the world this morning, what did I find?  Bits of mud and nesting material all over.  I looked up and the Barn Swallow’s nest in the corner looked like this…

When Yesterday it looked like this…

I noticed they were about the age to fly so I took some quick shots of them yesterday looking muppet-mouthed and full of teenage-angst. Nest intact… I guess they learned to fly the hard way! With the mess on the porch, I was sure the parents had destroyed the nest to force the babies to fly. That has happened a few times in the past. When I look to the other corner of the porch, I changed my mind. That nest was destroyed too! 

It could have been a rivalry, since we have two nests at either end of the porch connected by a wide window, each the property of separate breeding pairs. There have been turf wars before.

This second nest had teens fly away about 3 weeks ago and the parents worked the nest adding fresh mud, setting more feathers ( see our guinea feathers used as padding? Cool!) and had a clutch of eggs laid for about a week.  I was looking for the eggs, thinking they would have smashed on the porch  in the hubbub. I needed to get them cleaned up before the ants invaded, but I didn’t find any. About this time Jack appeared at the door. 

I started to explain what was what. Pointing down, at the ground and gesturing to the broken nests. I looked up in his face and got the shock my life! Just above the door he just exited, between the two broken nests was…

a Texas Rat Snake. 

WOW!

Those bumps of mud snake friend is climbing over are mud-dauber nests, the little bits of mud are .unsuccessful mud-dauber nests. The daubes the Barn Swallows ate mid-build.

Its tough living on our porch.

We started counting barn swallows. Nine. Phew! All accounted for.

The eggs probably are in the pit of this fancy gymnastic snake. To get the barn swallows to calm down and get to their rebuilding underway, Jack lifted this snake off the house with a long pole while Dillon and I held a sheet to catch it if it fell. It didn’t fall more than a foot before he hit the safety sheet. Go us!! We quickly brought the edges of the sheet together to take him out to the yard. The cool day, the snake’s recent feed, and the short fall kept the snake pretty calm. It stayed in the sheet wrapper till I got him out on under the trees. Our Guineas were squawking their heads off. Snake! Snake! Snake! The terrorized snake was soon climbing our Sycamore Tree to get away from ALL that noise!

…and to think I was going to show you Nectarine Tree Photos today? It was an exciting thought to show you all that fruit before a snake climbed the house! WHOOT!

Happy Tuesday!

Jodiann