Snakes: have you ever seen one in the wild, in the UK or anywhere else ?

[WildRosie]

I haven't so my contributions here will be limited. However, I find snakes fascinating creatures, even though they give me the creeps and I sometimes have nasty snake dreams. I'd love to see a grass snake catching some rays after laying her eggs in the spring, or an adder mellowing out among the heather. But I haven't yet. We don't get smooth snakes in Yorkshire so zero chance there. Please share your legless reptile stories. Slow worms don't count.

I often see garter snakes at the cottage here in Ontario? This past summer, my nephew called us to come outside to see a snake eating a toad. I didn't get too close. 😳

I know a few really good places in Yorkshire to see them. Place near Pocklington we call snake wood. If you leave out some corrugated iron in a good place they love that.

Had some terrifying angry one hiss at me on a croatian island. Had a big yellow head and didnt look happy at all.

I thank my lucky stars that I live in Ireland so can't possibly stumble across a snake.

No, I've seen a lot of slow worms in the compost heap though.

DM still feels guilty about the adder in the wood store she killed about 25 years ago (dad worked abroad, isolated house and 2 toddlers that played in the garden - she didn't know what else to do)

Op is talking specifically about the species type smooth snake

I've seen one in the wild in Italy but never in this country.

Lots of wild boar in north yorkshire, especially Dalby forest. Somebody told me their populations were getting out of hand a few years ago but no idea how true that is.

Capercallies are my new favourites in the UK. They look like sozzled old colonial officers

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=kN2lxUkhJW4

I live in Australia so yes. Once in my house when I was a child, once at the local playground with my toddler and a few times bushwalking. Oh and once cycling on Rottnest island, I came over a hill and about five snakes were crossing the road in front of me, so I took the only possible course of action - lifted my feet high off the pedals and screamed!

Couple venomous ones. Gaboon (gorgeous) and puff adder. Not in the UK though, when I travelled West Africa.

OP watch the video of the spider-tailed Iranian viper on YT.

Build yourself a compost heap with a cover and wait two years. Then take it apart. You'll see snakes.

I grew up in Ireland and never saw any there of course. However, I've seen some in the US.

The first was a rattlesnake where the hard shoulder of I-70 met the parched grass somewhere in western Kansas. I was in a car speeding past but the rattle shape was unmistakable.

Second, third and fourth were small yellow and black snakes in rural Wisconsin.

Then some sort of big brown snake along with small ones with the same markings at a dude ranch in Colorado. They were all just outside the cabin my family was staying in, slithering around in the grass and among the bushes.

Snakes give me the willies.

Oh and there was another in the car park of a restaurant in the barrio in Denver, a big one. There were some snake wranglers picking it up with some sort of pitchfork/ pincher thing so I assume it was venomous.

Oh and one swimming in an inland lake in Michigan. Just when I thought it was safe to get back in the water...

Years ago saw a snake of some sort by a canal in Shropshire, curled up on the top of a wooden post in the sun.

More recently, we've seen a couple in Norfolk. One shot across the road in front of the car, another rose like a periscope above long grass when we were walking.

No idea whether they were snakes/slow worms etc

Adder basking on a dry stone wall edging a grassy bank on Forestry Commission land in Wales. I was on horseback, which is why I was able to get close without frightening it away.

We have grass snakes nesting in the compost bins and a fairly long one in the pond this year, presumably after the tadpoles and frogs. There was a big adder in a trailer load of bark mulch we had delivered a few years ago, luckily DH didn’t see it, he’s phobic about snakes but they don’t bother me.
Often see slow worms (I know they’re not a snake)

Not in the UK so kind of cheating but I've seen python and sand snakes several times but the only exciting encounters have been a black mamba while walking and a puff adder that decided to move into my house. Both only exciting in hindsight when I'd fled with my life and all limbs intact

Saw loads in the summer this year, far more than usual. Normally grass snakes swimming in the river and a couple of adders. We live rurally so they're not an unusual sight but still make me jump.

Used to have small grass snakes eating tadpoles in my pond.

Have attached picture of lovely grass snake I saw in April at a local nature reserve (old quarry hence the big rocks!). Was 3 ft long. Slithered off before I got a better photo.

And nearly mountain biked over a slow worm a couple of years ago. Had to do emergency stop and rescue it.

Would love to see an adder but am Midlands so less of them I think.

Grass snakes in my parents garden and adders up on Dartmoor

Yes, added in the lakes, and in the wild in the US, Australia and Sri Lanka

I saw a cobra when I was in India. It was in the garden behind my boarding house. My friend and I were going into the garden when we saw it, and we turned and ran back round the wall, and attempted to let the owners know about it, but neither our Hindi nor their English was good enough for a quick understanding. It ended up as a surreal game of charades.

An adder in the New Forest. It shot off PDQ.

Don’t know what sort it was, but saw one swimming in a lake in the Cotsolds. Just its head poking out, swimming in a zig zag motion.

Scariest was what I thought was a colourfully striped, apparently dead one on the beach when we lived in the Middle East. Picked it up with a stick to throw it back in the sea - where it instantly swam off. Didn’t realise until later that it was a sea snake, one of the deadliest, and one of our then little dds could easily have picked it up.😱