My family might have saved this little guy's life even though he doesn't seem very happy with us.

A couple of maintenance guys were trimming the long grass around a storm pond at a county park across the street from our neighborhood. My son noticed that one of the guys looked like he had a snake, so of course I did what any herper would and backed up to get a better look. I got out of the car and saw one of the guys chuck the snake into the pond as if it was a rubber hose. I ran over there and yelled at them to leave it alone. The guy mentioned that he wasn't going to kill it but just wanted to make it go to the other side of the pond, but of course the snake just wanted to get back to land as soon as it could and came right back to them. I had the feeling they were just going to put a quick end to the little guy.

Anyway, the snake was pretty angry so my son brought my snake hook and sack. As we were picking it up I noticed a nice looking Garter snake about 10 feet away and placed him in the sack as well. I brought them both back to my yard and let them go... lots of native grass, shrubs, and gophers/field mice/frogs to keep both of them happy. I tried getting pics of the Garter, but he was just way too fast and took off before I could get a shot but not before he musked all over me.

These Gopher snakes are pretty amazing at mimicking the Rattlesnake as you can see. They love to shake their tail when they feel threatened and you can see how they spread their head out to look like the diamond shaped head of a Rattlesnake.