Another gray rat snake
 

Yesterday I was walking around the house and when I rounded a corner, I heard a rustling noise in the palm fronds I was getting ready to move through. When I looked closely, I saw a gray rat snake staring at me. Not sure if he did the rustling, or perhaps a bird he was stalking. The rat snake was about 4 to 4.5 ft. long. I went ahead and pulled him out of the palm tree, and he was pretty well behaved. Did nip me on the knuckles of my right hand, though while I was carrying him to the building to put him in a bag. Needed to relocate him out into the national forest so he doesn't nab any of the birds we have frequenting around the house. We have several Carolina wrens that roost overnight on the porch, so he may have been heading in that direction.

So took him out to the national forest today and sent him on his way.

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And while we were out there we saw a bevy of butterflies sitting on a damp spot in the middle of the road. Not sure what they were doing there, however, but they seemed worthy of taking a pic of them.

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Never seen one here. And only maybe 3 yellow in my whole life. 90% of what i see is black snakes.

I don't believe the gray rat snake's range extends far enough south for you to run into any of them. Most of the various varieties of rat snakes seem to have exclusive ranges with some overlap where the ranges meet. Your area would likely have the yellow rat snake than any other form.

And yeah, black racers seem to be abundant just about everywhere. If you ever see a black snake that is heavy bodied with more of a shiny blue-black appearance, that would be the eastern indigo snake. But they are getting rare to find, and protected all along their range. The indigo will tackle and eat venomous snakes, so they would be good to have around and encourage to hang out nearby.

I used to see them where i hunted in west Levy county near the gulf in the wetter parts of the woods with hammocks. I was sitting down one day and a at least 8 footer slid right over my boots and he never seemed to mind i was there.

They seem to have a glow in the dark deep blue, black. I have seen many big one's in them woods , but never see them in the Tampa area.