We rescued a toad from a gardener snake

What is with the gardener snakes this year? We've seen them all over our property; some are pretty large. There is a mama gardener snake living in our flowerbeds. We first spotted her in the early spring and were startled when we saw her then (and every time since), as she is at least 4 feet long. She is the largest gardener snake I've ever seen! She's pretty thick in girth as well. Maybe a dozen other smaller snakes (probably her babies) are hanging around, too.

Well, the snakes are not just plentiful here on our property. We were walking this evening and encountered the strangest thing on the road. Just up ahead of us, we saw what looked like a snake slithering across the road, and its head appeared to be bouncing as it went! As we walked closer, we realized the strange sight was a toad trying to escape from a snake. The snake had ahold of the toad's back foot, biting down hard to hang onto it as it hopped along.

I broke a long stem from a hedge and whacked at the snake until it let go. The poor toad had a wounded foot and didn't even try to escape, so I gently picked it up and set it far away from the snake. The snake slithered to one side of the road, and I put the little toad down in a yard filled with low shrubbery on the other side of the road, where it could hide. 

Below is a photo I could snap of the pair during the ordeal.

    

I also went through my photos and found a picture of the mama snake living in our flowerbeds. She has also been spotted in and near the garden and in the field of tall grass by the creek. I'm sure she's eating voles and other small rodents, which we appreciate because the voles have destroyed our garden this year. We've noticed that the vole population is dwindling. 

The photo doesn't do justice to the mama snake's immense size. That's only about half of her in the picture above. I had no idea gardener snakes could reach her size!