Calling all herpetologists

A reader of Tuesday's post said the snake in question looked to have the markings of an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake.

That inspired me to send some additional photos of the snake to Sam Venable, News-Sentinel columnist and outdoorsman extraordinare. Sam said it looked like a black rat snake to him. That concurs with my thinking that it was a common chicken snake. If the snake eats your hens' eggs, it's a chicken snake. If it eats mice, it's a rat snake, but it's all the same reptile.

The photo above shows the head of the snake a little better. It does not have the triangular shape of a poisonous snake. Just the same, I will move cautiously around the little red barn.