I know it is snake season. Just doing a bit of gardening and along slithered this long black and yellow snake. He must of come up from the ground behind me as he left his trail in the soft soil. He then went into the rocks of a low wall.
Am I lucky he did not harm me?
He was beautiful tho.

I was going to ask a similar question....

I came across one about 2 weeks ago , i have a photo somewere , black all over but the underneath was lighter, yellowy colour , unfriendly git it was as well i tried to poke it gently with a long stick to make it go away....it wasnt happy!

It had eaten the baby birds in the nest in one of the plum trees, well..... it was eating them when i got there as the parent birds jumped up and down squarking about it

This was aginst a wall, right by the well, i think i saw it a few days later in the rocks between the wall of the well and the watermeter pit

you 2 have put me right off gardening. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Always treat these things as nasty as the Bulgarians do. A swift crack across the back with a spade does the trick. Either that or call a friendly gipsy they deal with them quite easily. Snake don't like the sun and tend to go for shady area's.

Likely to be an Aesculapian Snake (check out Wikipedia).

I must admit although I am an avid wildlife fan and worked in zoos for 30 years, saying I am not keen on snakes is an understatement.
From the info on Wikipedia they will climb trees and eat birds and eggs, but also eat rodents.

Although I am scared of snakes as they (Aesculapian Snake) are harmless I would cope with them if they were around, but saying that we haven't move to Bulgaria yet. We have grass snakes, adders and smooth snakes in UK and I have only ever seen grass snakes in all my 52 years and they were found in the compost heap in our garden.


Equinus

How's this for a snake? I found him a month or so ago climbing down our wall. Completely harmless, but I wasn't going to get any nearer!
The only poisonous ones in Bulgaria are found in the mountains, or so I'm told. They are horned vipers.

I wasn't privy to seeing the snake that slithered past Annette, but as Brits living in this foreign land, a thousand something miles from family and friends in our outpost in the middle of deepest Bulgaria, natural things that happen at certain times of the year are unknown to us until some kindly person gives us a snippet of information. This is the case which occurred yesterday, but we had been informed that this time of the year is "
snake time"
, walking in long grass is not to be attempted whilst these creatures are lurking in the undergrowth.

So following this warning none of us has been walking in long grass looking for "
Doctor Livingstone,"
we have just been walking in the short grass in the field and had not attempted the long stuff! With all of us doing various works around the garden and at the side and back of the house we felt safe from any nasty thing creeping up on us. Annette had just walked 30 yards from the house and was talking to Sandra who is here on a holiday and helping us get the house straight, when a 6 to 7 foot black and yellow snake slide along the ground not more than 2 feet from where Annette was standing and disappeared into some undergrowth near our far wall. I didn't particularly hear the scream from where I happened to be at the time, but noticed the walls of the house shake a little bit (she didn't scream really, I put that bit in, it sounds good!). Annette has made a full recovery from this incident and was well enough to carry on working and also cook dinners for all three of us. True British grit . . . . you can't beat it can you?

Good on you and Annette for NOT banging it over the back of the head with a shovel.

Thanks for the pictures Equinus. He did look very much like that but his colouring was more vivid with the yellow markings on top. Perhaps a male, most males have better markings.

Hi Scunnered, I can only get the tail of your picture up. Stupid dongle never opens all. Shame I wanted to see it.

Equinus wrote:

Good on you and Annette for NOT banging it over the back of the head with a shovel.

Quite agree with you. We've seen several in the garden but they are harmless to us. They will also eat mice
and rats. I showed the photo to a Bulgarian friend and he was horrified that we hadn't killed it!
Live and let live I say!

Come on over to my place and have a look...we have caught and removed two or three so far this season. We often find one in the egg boxes down in the chicken yard..a hand full of sand thrown towards him gets him moving off. The local name is 'smock' and they are harmless [non-venomous, but they will bite]..have also come across a couple of rat snakes and they tend to be the black and yellow types unlike the grass snake [smock] which is usually greenish brown. They tend not to bother me at all, but if they are a worry to you..tread heavily in the long grass [stomp] and if you come across one in a confined space, just give him a safe exit and he'll be off like a flash..no need to pulverise the poor sod.

Smock snakes rarely attack humans, but I have seen one jump over a meter or so quite easily, wanted to evade us ( sometime ago in a forest close to Troyan ). No venom in most species, not aggressive towards humans so don`t worry.
There are two species to worry about - beige/grey with black or brown on its back ( Pepelyanka - not very aggressive, average venom strenght but still could kill, often recovery is without anti-venom to be taken ) or a black/beige/yellow one ( Usoinitsa, strong venom but rarely injects enough to kill, usually you`ll be fine in 24 hours ).
It is much better to make it move somewhere else instead of killing it. Let`s face it, its an animal just looking for its own survival, can`t blame it for this, can we? Smocks also control the rat/mice populations, killing them as many gypsies do in Bulgaria may lead to another kind of problem which I consider worse.