I’ve been watching a pair of nesting birds feed their young for the last month or so. They built a nest on a speaker I have mounted outside on a brick wall under my soffit. Today I look out and notice mom and dad sitting on the railing looking back at their nest so I peak out the window and see all 3 of their chicks laying dead on my patio.

I had some running to do so I left for a couple hours and when I got home there was a black snake polishing off the last dead chick.

Did the snake use the guttering to scale the wall then come across the roof and then drop under the soffit onto the nest or can they scale a brick wall. Why does the snake kill the chicks and drop them out of the nest to only come down and eat them while on the patio.

Brick walls are no problem for snakes...

Yep. Snakes can climb. Some do it more than others. Black snakes are big on bird eggs.

Is there anything these creepy bastards can’t do?

Show you jazz hands.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigmonkey,

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Brick walls are no problem for snakes...

That's impressive.

I would of lost a bet on that one...

This is the one I discovered a few years back while at work on a chimney:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...OGk&feature=youtu.be

You needed to put the link between the flash video brackets.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Blume9mm:
This is the one I discovered a few years back while at work on a chimney:

Bless you for that, King Snakes and Black Racers are great to have around.

Yes, the same way they climb trees.

quote:

Originally posted by Ace31:
Bless you for that, King Snakes and Black Racers are great to have around.

Yep.

I don't mind garter snakes, black snakes, or kingsnakes. They keep the rodent population down, and some even eat other less desirable snakes. So they're good to have around.

But if it's brown and even slightly viper-ish looking, it's dead!

I have a brick house. It was only one time, but I did see a black snake crawling straight up the side of my house.

Where are you located? Here in Tennessee if you see one and wonder "how did it get up there?", it's probably a Gray Ratsnake, Pantherophis spiloides.

Yes. Saw a black snake on the second story brick wall of a townhouse a few years ago.

When I first saw it I did a double-take.

You don’t come in mom’s house and mess with her parakeet.
She had hung her parakeet’s cage about eye level in the middle of a bare wall. One day, she found a snake in that cage, but no parakeet. Good snake or not, she terminated him with extreme prejudice for consuming her beloved bird.

Chicks fall out of nests and die. Happens all the time. If the snake was involved, it probably scared them out of the nest.

quote:

Originally posted by lithog:
Where are you located? Here in Tennessee if you see one and wonder "how did it get up there?", it's probably a Gray Ratsnake, Pantherophis spiloides.

Just outside of St.Louis. I thought it was a black snake but it did have a nice brown pattern to it when the light hit it correctly.

We have Gray Rat Snakes here in the South. They're great climbers and they can climb almost any vertical surface.

The worrisome thing is that copperheads are beginning to climb here as well. A guy got bitten recently when he ducked under a limb and got hit by a snake in the tree. It may have to do with their love of eating emerging cicadas.

RMD

Say "got it" when you see it.