[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Shadywood

I was sitting in my lanai yesterday, when all of a sudden there was commotion in the hedges. I got up to see what was going on, and the family of thrushes that live in there came flying out. A few seconds later, a little 2' black snake slithered out, saw me, and instead of running the other way, he zoomed right past my dog towards me and then dove for cover in the Mexican Petunias next to the lanai door where I'd been standing a moment before. If I hadn't somehow levitated back inside the door, he'd have probably run over my foot.

It was weird. I've never seen birds be so afraid of such a little snake, or such little snake charge a human like that. He must just get a kick out of terrorizing his neighbors. I caught a good enough glimpse to be sure he wasn't poisonous, so I figure he must be a black racer, which we don't have in Texas. I hope he eats the giant cockroaches and leave the lizards alone. Some of them are practically pets. And I can't wait to see him pull that charging stunt on my wife. I'll be peeling her off the ceiling!

Snakes have a lot more personality than you'd think.

We used to have a big Texas rat snake that would hang out around our chicken coop back home, and swipe an egg every now and then. He got so tame I could nearly get close enough to pick him up. One evening I was locking up the coop and my favorite chicken was sitting on her roost making this weird low noise and squirming around like she didn't know what to do. That rat snake had his head under her wing, and was checking her out, like he was groping around looking for something. I grabbed his tail and he whipped around and reared back like he was going to bite, so I let him go and he just slithered off real slow, just to show me he wasn't the least bit scared. I'm not sure what the heck he was doing to my chicken, but I have a feeling it's illegal in most states!

Animals have some strange and interesting behavior. Maybe they say that about us too!