You’ll never guess, but it was a snake.
Sadly, this wasn’t a British snake – well, not a native one – it was a common garter snake from North America. This is what Arkive has to say about it:
“The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) is a long, slender North American snake with a colourful and extremely variable appearance. Its upperparts may range from black, brown or grey to green, olive or red, and there are normally three light stripes running along its length. These stripes can vary from yellowish to brown, green, blue, orange, grey or whitish, and are normally well defined, although they may occasionally be indistinct or even absent. …”
There’s lots more on the Arkive website about the snake. Any why was it so popular? We wonder if it is because people buy them as pets.