My first chore when I got home after yesterday’s medical procedure was to roust an uninvited serpent from the garage. Damsel noticed that a curve-billed thrasher had chased a gopher snake into the garage while the door was open. The bird flew off, but the snake hid itself behind the shop-vac along the garage wall.
I fetched a non-lethal corn broom from the back of the garage and proceeded to move the shop vac out of the way and to firmly but gently sweep the snake in the direction of the vacant property to the east. Damsel took this photo while the snake was still hissing at us before retreating over the rocks to the desert habitat on the unimproved land. I shooed it in that direction because I know that the curve billed thrasher that was chasing it has a nest with probable chicks or eggs on the west side of our property.
I seem to be doing a lot of good deeds for the thrasher population recently.
Let him stick around. Good mouser, but keep him away from the thrasher nests. Gopher snakes are garbage cans; they’ll eat anything that they can catch, kill, and swallow.