If you see a snake in High Park, consider yourself lucky. Typically, snakes are secretive, hiding between in cool spaces between rocks or hunting in long grass. High Park is home to two species of snake: the common Eastern Garter Snake and the uncommon DeKay's Brownsnake. No snakes in High Park or Toronto are venomous.
Garter Snakes
The Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) is widespread throughout North America and common in High Park. These snakes are far-ranging due to an unparticular diet and their adaptability to different habitats and landforms, with varying proximity to water.
Eastern Garter Snake. Photo: Ken Mulhall
Garter snakes, like all snakes, are carnivorous. Their diet consists of almost any creature that they are capable of overpowering: slugs, earthworms, leeches, lizards, amphibians, birds, fish, toads and rodents. When living near the water, they will eat other aquatic animals. Food is swallowed whole. Garter snakes often adapt to eat whatever they can find, and whenever, because food can be scarce or abundant. Although they dine mostly upon live animals, they will sometimes eat eggs.
DeKay's Brownsnake (Storeria dekayi) is uncommon in High Park. Photo: Bob Yukich
A new Chronolog mount has been installed at the lookout pier on Grenadier Pond by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). This pilot project invites visitors to take digital pictures of the same view over time and post them…
The High Park Hawk Watch got off to a “flying” start with several bald eagles on September 8th. It continues daily until November 30. Hawks generally fly when the winds are from the northwest. Keen birders monitor the weather report…
Contributed by David Creelman Earlier this year, ‘The Martineers’, a small group of local birders who look after the old Purple Martin house at the south end of Grenadier Pond, approached TRCA (Toronto and Region Conservation Authority). The old house…
It’s late July and the native plants in the High Park Boulevard Beds are putting on a wonderful display! Many showy flowering perennials are blooming and the native grasses, Big Bluestem and Panic Grass, are beginning to flower. The High…
The High Park Movement Strategy is moving forward. The first phase of implementation work is set for July 28 to August 5, 2023. It will introduce new pavement markings, signage, and traffic control measures. This schedule is weather dependent and…
If you see a snake in High Park, consider yourself lucky. Typically, snakes are secretive, hiding between in cool spaces between rocks or hunting in long grass. High Park is home to two species of snake: the common Eastern Garter Snake and the uncommon DeKay’s Brownsnake. No snakes in High Park or Toronto are venomous.
Garter Snakes
The Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) is widespread throughout North America and common in High Park. These snakes are far-ranging due to an unparticular diet and their adaptability to different habitats and landforms, with varying proximity to water.
Eastern Garter Snake. Photo: Ken Mulhall
Garter snakes, like all snakes, are carnivorous. Their diet consists of almost any creature that they are capable of overpowering: slugs, earthworms, leeches, lizards, amphibians, birds, fish, toads and rodents. When living near the water, they will eat other aquatic animals. Food is swallowed whole. Garter snakes often adapt to eat whatever they can find, and whenever, because food can be scarce or abundant. Although they dine mostly upon live animals, they will sometimes eat eggs.
DeKay’s Brownsnake (Storeria dekayi) is uncommon in High Park. Photo: Bob Yukich
Eastern Hog-nosed Snake - Extirpated Species
Eastern Hog-nosed Snake (Heterodon platirhinos) no longer occurs in High Park. Photo: Andrew HoffmanDid you know we used to have our very own cobra look-a-like right here in High Park? The eastern hog-nosed snake has a thick body and neck that it flattens out like a hood, cobra style, when it’s disturbed. If it feels threatened, it will raise its head, flatten its neck to form a hood, hiss loudly and lunge with its mouth closed in the direction of the threat. If the bluff does not discourage the predator, the eastern hog-nosed snake goes to plan B. It rolls over and plays dead, hanging its tongue out of its gaping mouth. Then, to seem less appetizing to fresh flesh eating predators, this snake also vomits and empties its bowels to smell as rotten and foul as possible. If the snake is turned right again onto its belly, it will just flip back over and return to its playing dead routine.As it swallows its small prey, the eastern hog-nosed snake immobilizes its meal by injecting very mild venom through a set of fangs at the back of its mouth. It can’t inject venom into larger animals or humans and so is not harmful to humans. However, people who mistake it for a dangerous species often kill this snake.The eastern hog-nosed snake has not been reported in High Park for decades. This species is listed as a threatened species in Ontario and in Canada.
We brake for snakes
Sometimes when the air is cool and the sun is high, snakes come out to bask on rocks, paved paths or roads. Be sure to keep an eye out for snakes when cycling or driving through natural areas.
