With my new pond in operation only 3 weeks, I have a snake. I saw him hiding in the rocks with just his head sticking out. He would lunge at the minnows as they swam by. He is about 10 in long with a body about as thick as a #2 pencil. He has small sharp dark rectangles against a medium to light body. His body is long and lean as opposed to stocky. Any ideas on his type, anyone?????

gayla

If you go to enature.com and enter in your zip code, you can see animals like snakes that are native to just where you live. Where do you live? Here in MD, the snakes most often to visit a pond are garter snakes and ribbon snakes. I've had both visit. Black rat snakes also come but don't swim as much as the garter snakes. I have photos of a dead garter snake in my snake section:

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/pmamm.htm#reptile

THanks, Robyn. It turned out to be a diamondback water snake. They are very aggressive and grow to over 5 ft in length. I carried him to a little creek some distance from my house. I hope he doesn't find his way back.

Yikes! Glad he's having fun elsewhere. A few years ago, someone sent me photos of such an aggressive water snake swallowing their huge goldfish.