omg, i just went to hang out some washing and found a 6" snake on the path outside my back door! i know we dont have poisonous snakes in this country, but i wondered if anyone knew if i should be doing something about this? i have a cat, 4 rabbits and 2 young children so i dont really want to encourage snakes as well, enoughs enough lol

oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh mmmmmyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
a snake!
I would ring the RSPCA and keep a (distant) eye on it. it might be someones pet that escaped, so if you describe it to them they can tell you if its a native or not

England does have the odd grass snake - but I'd do as Riah says and ring the RSPCA.

emmmmm we do have a poisonous snake!!!!!!!!! the adder we have quite a few on the island and we went to a park in Gillingham last week and one slithered right across the path!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh and I was a good girl cos I am petrified of them and I did not have thew screaming addabs (I had to be brave had the nieces with me!)

We also found a snake in the garden a few weeks ago also around 6/7 inches long it was brown with dots on My husband used thick welding gloves to pick it up and put it out of the way in a field. We checked on the internet and it was a common grass snake I believe that in certain areas they are very rare

Hi an adder has a v on the back of its neck ( that is if you can hang around long enough to look) personally I could beat a greyhound out of its trap!!! :D petrified and longing to live in Ireland ( apparently no snakes ) Patricia isn't that a good sellling point? lesley

sorry forgot the reason I was posting was because I was told today that snakes hate geraniums wether that is true or not I do not know but I am planting loads of geraniums

I also saw a snake in Wales this yr......just slithered along the pathway it did....that was also about 7ins long

hi all,i checked with the rspca website and it seems my snake was a harmless grass snake , which are pretty rare now! :( anyways, i moved it to a sheltered spot of the garden and i'm just hoping my cat doesnt catch it now or i'll feel very quilty :(

Aw yuk, snakes :( What is the point of a snake? What is their purpose in life apart from put the fear of everything Holy into me . God must have been having a bad day when he made snakes Shudder.

Snakes are very good at eating all sorts of things like birds eggs, baby roddents etc... so serve a useful purpose... Most snakes are rare these days and have retreated to gardens due to lose of habitat... they like compost heaps because of the warmth... and like to bask at this time of the year... if you spot one and you are not in striking distance try stamping on the spot (not the snake) as they are far more scared of you than you of them...

I remember as a girl catching sand lizards and having races with them... but you just do not see them these days

What a world we are living in... We have to learn to live with it, not against it... we are being shown all sorts of signals that it is in trouble, we ignore them at our peril...

What can we do about it?... make our gardens into sanctaries for wildlife... I have lots of birds visiting to feed, the bottom of the garden is a lot wilder - and less disturbed for timid mammils and the frogs etc... and if I can I do not spray - so I have left one or two cabbage plants to the butterflies and squished the catipilla's on the others... if I miss them one day, I'll get them later... but I will still have butterfiles... gosh I used to catch magnificent peacocks and red admirals as a child but nowadays only see a few...

Angela

we get loads of butterflies and amazing dragonflies but when we went to Normandy we were amazed at the amount and different species that we encountered. It was fabulous. Mind you one of the hedgehogs nearly gave my daughter a heart attack whilst we were away she nearly stepped on one in the kitchen that had somehow come in through the catflap!!

I used to kill all manner of creepy crawlies in my garden because I hated them, ants, spiders, you name it, it got squashed. Then I watched a programme about garden insects and the good they do, so I try to leave them alone now. I have come to terms with spiders and can spend quite a while watching them spin their webs and eat the flies (which I hate) that are caught in the web. I've learnt to live with nature and let it do its thing, rather than me interfere.

Hi Cranium,

Good for you... I have a garden filled with spiders and I am not adverse to chucking the odd daddylonglegs in their webs to give them a boost at this time of year...

I even have a lovely one in the house who even has to put up with the web being taken away when I clean up... but it soon creates a new one and it certainly helps control the flies...

But it is the daddylonglegs which really bother me at this time of the year as they seem to delight in flying into you - maybe they should have L plates but its being divebombed in bed that really tests my patients...

Angela