When I was a kid growing up in Virginia, the best place to go to find reptiles and amphibians in my neighborhood was "the swamp".  This was a marshy area down by some railroad tracks near my house in Fairfax county.  There was a big, central swamp that covered an acre at most, and then there was a smaller swamp to the south of it.  Between the two was a trail that led down to where the railroad tracks disappeared into the woods.

I used to spend so many days there, wading around barefoot catching red-spotted newts, painted turtles, chorus frogs, water snakes, and even a snapping turtle once.  But the *big* day was the day that I caught my first eastern kingsnake.  This was one of the most treasured animals that an avid snake-hunter like myself could bag.  I would have great bragging rights amongst my peers just for seeing one in the wild.

It happened one day when I was walking along the trail between the two sections of swamp.  I wasn't looking under rocks or flipping wood or anything.  I was just walking along when I heard what sounded like a rattlesnake's rattle buzzing.  I stepped back and looked down and there in broad daylight was a beautiful eastern king pretending to be a ferocious rattlesnake.  It reared back its head in an S-formation and hissed menacingly.

Naturally, being the trail-wise snake hunter that I was, I saw through it's ploy and rushed over to bag the creature.  I was so quick back then that it didn't even have time to flinch.  I picked it up and as it rolled around through my fingers the grandeur of the moment started to sink in and I think I literally flew home.

That was more than 20 years ago and I don't think that the swamp is even there anymore.  Of all of the summers that I spent crawling through that place I don't recall anything that was as big as that catch I made.  The snake came home and like everything that I showed to my mom was banished to the garage.  But even in the garage, it was a magnificent animal.

Once I started collecting reptiles again as an adult, I couldn't wait to get an eastern king.  The photos on this page are photos of a male that I bought from my friend John White who lives out in Virginia.  Eastern kings get to be large colubrids and at the rate that mine eats, it should be as big as any boa or python that I own.  He is every bit as spectacular as the one that I caught a long time ago.  (Now, if I could just find him a girlfriend........ :)

This is me in 1978 with my first ever eastern kingsnake.  Besides our initial encounter at the swamp, it never did act agressively towards me.

There is a lot of information about king snakes in general, and eastern kings don't have specific requirements that vary from the norm.  There is at least one website dedicated to them:

© 2002 Greg Cooper (greg@gregcooper.net)

Unless otherwise credited, all photographs and text are my property and may not be used without my permission.  World maps courtesy of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.  I don't claim responsibility for the content of any of the websites that I link to.
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