iN VIDEO: Great basin gopher snake slides across South Okanagan backyard

A nature lover in Penticton had an interesting visitor slide very smoothly and slowly across a section of her yard earlier this month.

Teresa Taylor was out with her little dog when it indicated there was something under a bush, so she scooted the dog away and stood there watching quietly, ready to capture footage of whatever it could be.

What emerged was a very long, great basin gopher snake with its signature pattern of dark black squares running from head to tail. 

“When I first saw the snake it was doing posturing with its head, holding about six inches of its body straight up, I wish I got a picture of that,” she said. “Then I heard the sounds of it as it slithered away.”

The great basin gopher snake is a native species that lives in the warm, dry grasslands of the Thompson and Okanagan Valleys, and in parts of the Fraser and Kettle Valleys. 

They are light brown in colour with dark black squares on their backs and striped tails, and adults can exceed 240 cm in length, according to the BC Ministry of Environment.

The snakes hibernate in communal dens from November to late March before emerging to snack on small rodents and birds they kill by constriction. Mating begins in May and eggs are laid at communal nesting sites in June.

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