Save the Snakes...at least the little harmless ones!

Chuckiechan

Well-known member
Jun 10, 2014
637
Roseville, CA
I frequently find small dead Red Racers. They are about the diameter of a night crawler worm, but longer. Life is tough on nature in a subdivision, and tough enough when they die in my pool and end up in the filter! Errp.
They seem to crawl in through the finger holes of the skimmer cover.
I have discovered a way to save them.
I put a 5" piece of hollow pool noodle in my skimmer. It floats and acts like a little life raft, where I can dump them back in the garden.
Every few days, another critter saved!
 

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I think I've told this story before. If you've heard it, stop me.

When I swim, I often encounter drowning bugs. I prefer to save them rather than emptying their corpses from my skimmer. I scoop them onto a handy pool toy and drop them on the deck.

One day when I did this, and the bug was struggling to regain its breath, a little fence lizard came out of nowhere and ate it in one bite.

Funny or sad?
 
Funny for sure. That's just nature. The only things I don't hesitate to drown are wasps. If I'm swimming then I try to drown it to the point of it can't fly, then I splash it to the side of the pool so it can climb up on the deck where I crush it with a shoe.
 
I get an insane amount of junebugs in my pool... I bet more than 200 this season. I have zero problem letting those things drown. I did save a weird looking giant beetle bug thing earlier this season at my son's request; because he "looked super cool and I wanna hold it".
 
I think I've told this story before. If you've heard it, stop me.

When I swim, I often encounter drowning bugs. I prefer to save them rather than emptying their corpses from my skimmer. I scoop them onto a handy pool toy and drop them on the deck.

One day when I did this, and the bug was struggling to regain its breath, a little fence lizard came out of nowhere and ate it in one bite.

Funny or sad?
We are all food for something up or down the food chain, one day or another.
 
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