by Leslie Cox; Sunday, August 10, 2014

Last Sunday, I stepped of the house into the garage and surprised a small critter curled up by my garden shoes. It slithered away…so you can likely guess what it was.

I thought it was a young garter snake who had wandered in through the open garage door…looking for a quiet, cool place to take an afternoon siesta.

Sharp-tail snake - Contis tenuisI chased it around the recycle boxes, lawn mower and some of John’s small carpentry tools that he had assembled ready to hand for the current woodworking project he is working on. Finally managed to grab hold of it and took it outside to the nearest garden bed. Mission accomplished!

However, curiosity consumed me once I had moved everything back to their usual spots in the garage. This particular snake was quite small…hence my reasoning it was likely a young garter snake. But were young garter snakes really a dark colouring without any of the typical garter markings on them?

Short version of the longer story…found myself on the BC Reptiles website: http://www.bcreptiles.ca/snakes.htm. And there was a photo of our garage snake! Turns out we had a sharp-tail snake, or Contia tenius! It is also known as a sharp-tailed snake. This particular species is rare and on the red-list.

Why didn’t I get a photo??!! John was pretty stunned as I ALWAYS take photos of whatever turns up in our garden.

Needless to say, it is living up to what I have read about it…super shy. Have not seen it again…but it is nocturnal. I just hope it is still residing in my garden as I do have some slugs that are eluding me. Apparently, slugs are a sharp-tail’s favourite food.

Since the snake is on the red list, I did register the sighting and other pertinent information on the BC Reptile website. Looking at their map of the sharp-tail snake’s known regions, we are the most northern area ever to have seen this rare species.

Hopefully, there are other sharp-tail snakes in the neighbourhood so their population will be secure. Any critter that helps in controlling the slugs in our garden is a welcome one!