{"id":643,"date":"2025-11-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/?p=643"},"modified":"2026-05-10T13:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T17:32:17","slug":"black-snake-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/2025\/11\/black-snake-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Snake Eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I rake and gather a huge amount of leaves in autumn, creating massive leaf piles. Some piles are allowed to naturally decompose, one pile I move to the garden a year later when that pile is well on the way to becoming compost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last year and again this year I came across a cluster of white eggs near the bottom of the pile close to the edge at the center. I didn&#8217;t pay attention to the eggs last year. This year I saved some. The eggs are about 1.75 inches long and when first found the shells were leathery. Each egg had a slender slit where the baby snake emerged. Searching the web it seems these are eggs laid by a black snake. There were almost a dozen eggs in the clutch. The egg shells quickly dried and become hard like chicken eggs. The narrow slit enlarged and deformed. I&#8217;ve recreated the eggs as found in the leaves in this photo. I wished I taken a moment and taken photos of the nest as I found it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"450\" height=\"326\" src=\"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2804_450w.jpg\" alt=\"Black snake eggs\" class=\"wp-image-644\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2804_450w.jpg 450w, http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2804_450w-300x217.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I rake and gather a huge amount of leaves in autumn, creating massive leaf piles. Some piles are allowed to naturally decompose, one pile I move to the garden a year later when that pile is well on the way to becoming compost. Last year and again this year I came across a cluster of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sootypaws.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}