Even when you’re concentrating on looking for birds and  listening to their calls, you can’t help but come across many wonderful diversions at Spring Creek Forest Preserves. While monitoring birds at the Riding Center Preserve,  Jenny Vogt, Matt Hokanson and I had just crossed the clear, cool water of Spring Creek.  Peeking up from the rapidly moving current was the head of a snapping turtle. Its body appeared enormous just below the surface.  

Deciding it was time for an early morning snack, we sat on one of the horse jumps. While contemplating whether I wanted the Maple Nut or Brownie Powerbar, Matt Hokanson contemplated the large snake just to the left of my dangling feet.

A closer look revealed the snake was in fact two snakes, about the same size and the same species.  And then to our amazement, we discovered one of the snakes was enjoying a snack, too, it had swallowed about one third of the other snake.   

Nature can be unsettling at times. It helps to delve a little deeper to try and understand things, and here’s what I found out:

After taking photos of the snakes we identified them as Prairie kingsnakes.  These snakes are dietary generalists and feed on a wide variety of prey. Small rodents, birds, birds eggs, snakes, lizards, frogs, and reptile eggs have been reported as food.  But the bulk of their diet consist of rodents.

Prairie kingsnakes are known to consume other prairie kingsnakes (Smith, 1961) and also eat venomous snakes. They are immune to the venom of North American venomous snakes.

Kingsnakes are constrictors; killing their prey by suffocation before devouring it. Constriction is for killing prey rather than for defense. Constrictor snakes bite to defend themselves, but the bite is nonvenomous.  These snakes can defend themselves by emitting a strong, musky odor from glands at the base of their tail. They can also vibrate their tail when alarmed as another defense measure.

The prairie Kingsnake can live up to 20 years in the wild.