cats, snakes

[darkoshi]

I look out the window and see a little gray cat lying comfortably there in the dirt next to the azalea bush. How out of place cats seem, soft and cuddly and clean, in a cold hard world. It rolls over, stretches, gets up and walks on, no speck of dirt visible on it.

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Tuesday night, Qiao's garage floodlight cam sent a "pet detected" notification to my phone. I was very surprised to see a black cat carefully toying with a snake. I went outside; the cat ran off. The snake was crinkled up like I've seen once before with a snake on the back patio, though in a curled position this time. So it was probably a non-dangerous "rat snake":

https://tulsaworld.com/rat-snakes-sometimes-freeze-with-kinked-posture/article_763dea4d-93e5-5e64-ab51-43256048e2fd.html

“When frightened, they often assume a ‘kinked’ posture and remain motionless,” noted the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. The posture makes it appear wrinkled.

https://backyardwildlifeconnection.com/2018/09/29/rat-snake-found-kinking-in-backyard/

The black rat snake is one of several snakes that assume this bizarre posture. When threatened, rat snakes sometimes don this folded or braided pose as a form of camouflage. Supposedly, to a potential predator, a kinked snake looks like nothing more than a stick, and will pass on by without attacking the motionless reptile.