So not only has this species only appeared once before here, I’ve only seen them once in my entire life (in the wild anyway,) despite the fact that they’re supposed to be quite common. So I was delighted to spot this eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) just snoozing out in the open in a heavily wooded spot alongside Jordan Lake, but it also was amazingly cooperative in deciding to slink away slowly instead of shooting off in a flash, allowing for a whole sequence of images, and came within centimeters of my foot as it did so. It’s a harmless species and thus didn’t concern me with this, but to the best that I could determine, I was standing between its napping spot and its routine shelter, and so it detoured around me with elaborate calm to avoid attracting attention with sudden movement; had I done anything more than slowly pivot to follow it, I might have seen a more energetic escape. But isn’t that color pattern slick, especially on the head? I couldn’t tell you what purpose this serves, and it seems to me that horizontal banding enhances the motion of the snake and would make it easier to track by a hawk or an owl. I’ve chased plenty of snakes, and their habit of following through a ‘fixed’ curve makes you fixate on the midbody, which seems not to be moving that fast until the tail snaps through that curve and vanishes; this is a common trait and one that I’m sure helps a lot, so banding that defeats this illusion doesn’t seem right to me.
But yeah, I’m always hoping to eradicate this species from the ‘just once’ list, preferably with a lot of photos. This will be the year… right?