Last night a snake was in my backyard and I couldn't get him. Bastard escaped to a flower bed next to the house, and from there he either hid like a boss or escaped undetected, as they're so good at doing. I got him to move one time in there by banging on the rock border, but when I moved to get a better angle on him, I couldn't see him anymore. He either wised up and stayed still under the ground cover, even when I greatly disturbed the cover, or else he was gone. Second time a snake has eluded me in that flower bed.
It looked like a coral snake, but we've also got something called a Louisiana milk snake around here, which are similar, but from what I briefly saw, the colors were right but the pattern didn't quite match either of those. I looked it up and apparently there's a number of king snakes around here that evolve to mimic coral snakes, and they've got the red/yellow/black colors but the patterns can be kinda helter-skelter. Maybe that's what it was. Or maybe a coral....I don't know.
All I know is that he's alive, and that makes me grumpy. I *#!&*@ hate snakes, and I hate letting them get away.