Grass Snakes

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Possibly surprisingly for a land-based creature, most snakes are actually very good swimmers. They are also very good at hiding in the grass and so most of our sightings have been of snakes crossing the pond in our meadow
Their mottled colouring makes them quite hard to see though, and they make no noise when swimming, so the yellow neck-band rising above the water is often what catches the eye
Very rarely, we see a snake on land and so can go for a close-up shot. In this case however, all is not as it seems - as shown by the last image! Yes, this was in fact a baby snake barely larger than a matchstick which one of our cats had kindly brought us to see. No harm done, it would seem, as it happily slithered away when moved far from feline gaze

And this is where the "snakelets" probably came from - or something like it, anyway. These are clusters of eggs which we quite often find in our large compost heaps, which provide both protection and warmth to the developing eggs