what kind of snake?

[mudboy dave]

over the weekend I was raking leaves in the back corner of my property and saw some movement. i dug around in there and found a small snake about 6" long and the thickness of a ball point pen, it was black with a orange ring around its neck, and a orange belly. when i picked it up to put it to where i was moving the leaves to, it wrapped itsself around my index finger and just sorta hung out there. I wanted to keep it but knew it wasn't right so I put him back in his newly located leaf pile. Just curious to what kind of snake I encountered.

 

[imkms]

Snake ID

Sounds like a "Northern Redbelly Snake". I'm no expert, just found some info here and it does match your description.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/pdf/species/no_redbelly_snake.pdf

 

[manumuskin]

Mudboy
what you ound is a ringneck snake.we have both species here in southern nj.the northern and southerns bot overlap here.the southern has an orange rin around the neck that is broken on the top and they have rows of spots on their orange bellies.the northern has a complete unbroken yellow ring around it's nech and a plain orange belly with no spots.the northerns are much more common here but both are here.you no longer have the snake so ID may be impossible now but if your sure the ring was orange instead of yellow it was probably a southern.
Al

 

[mudboy dave]

yeah that looks like him thanks he was neat

 

[mudboy dave]

my last reply came in a little late, after looking at some pictures I would agree it looked more like the ringneck. I want to say the band was orange but I know for sure it was solid around its neck and the underbelly was pretty solid as well. this isn't the first time I came across one of these in my yard either.