One thing I love about the location of my house is the abundance of wildlife. Yes I’m in the city proper, but my house backs up to a greenbelt which is then connected to a few hundred acres of greenbelt, so we get all sorts of critters. Deer, coyote, fox, raccoon, possum, armadillo, and certainly lots of birds and reptiles. We do get lots of interesting lizards and snakes. Our neighbors across the street don’t get nearly what we do, because hot asphalt tends to be quite a barrier to cross. It’s really a nice thing… all the conveniences of the city, but a lot of the joys of the country as well.

A couple blocks from my house is a pond. Technically it’s part of flood control, but it does hold water year-round and has been landscaped into a nice park/pond. As a result, there’s a healthy population of turtles, geese, and ducks (mostly mallard and perhaps black duck, and the past few years Muscovy ducks have shown up). Every Spring the ducks wander the neighborhood, in search of food and nesting grounds. We currently have a nest in the bushes by our front door, which until just a few moments ago had 6 eggs.

I say that because Wife had a few friends visiting. She wanted to show them the nest and when she did she saw a snake eating the eggs. 🙂  The snake had just started swallowing the egg, so of course we had to bring the kids out for some nature study and research – a teachable moment! The snake seems to have eaten just the one egg and that was enough for him. He’s currently lounging in the bushes, getting some sun and digesting his feast.

Did some Googling and we think he’s a Texas Rat Snake, which are apparently quite common in the Austin area. This one was about 3.5′ long, so he’s still fairly young. The ladies visiting Wife wanted me to kill it, but I’m glad I didn’t. He’s not hurting anything and he’s not venomous. So he’s eating a duck egg… eh, he’s gotta eat something, right? Plus if he is in fact a Texas Rat Snake, he’s a good thing to have around in terms of keeping any rodents away. Of course, I think this guy was around more for the eggs than rodents. But still, good guy to have around, even if he does give Wife the willies. 🙂

BTW, if you click and look at the larger images you’ll see some black and white things all over the leaves of the bushes. Does anyone know what those are? I’ve been spraying the bushes for bugs but these seem to keep coming back and spreading. *sigh* I could just take them to the local nursery, but I haven’t been able to do that yet. If you know, please comment.