Snake, it's a snake!

Art Lad, the talented 6-year old son of Magazine Man, started a blog recently. The post that started it all is here. (It's great, go read it!)

"I need to find that picture of the Copperhead that I took last year," I told my husband. "I'm going to make a post about how much Art Lad likes snakes, and send some people over to see his new blog."

Only I couldn't find the picture. I'd evidently put it somewhere really good. I just wasn't sure where. Dagnabit.

In between picture searches, I happened to look at my blog's statistics page. My traffic had exploded! Wait, they're all coming from... Art Lad???

Turns out he'd been mentioned on BoingBoing, one of the oldest and most popular blogs on the internet. He was getting thousands of hits, and since he'd linked to me I was basking in the reflective glow.

So, it's not like he needs the exposure now, but go visit Art Lad anyway.

Oh yeah, I still can't find the Copperhead pic. But here's a couple of Black Racers we saw yesterday.

Hubby found this one, curled up off the path.

His close-up.

I found the second one.

OK, I almost stepped on him.

He seemed darker than the first one.

I believe they are both Northern Black Racers, Coluber constrictor constrictor. Despite the name, it's not a constrictor!

The second one slithered away so fast that I was reminded how they got the name Racer.

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Edited to add:

Thanks to commenters Jenn and Ron, who pointed out that the first snake is probably about to shed its skin! Besides the lighter color, the milky eye is apparently also a clue.