Milk Snake 

While in Western Massachusetts we found this fellow sunbathing on a rock. Assuming it was just a common garter snake, we snapped a photo and moved on. Later we found that what we actually stumbled on was a milk snake. Milk snakes are very similar in appearance to the copperhead and aggressive but they are not poisonous. If feeling threatened they whip their tail around making a whizzing noise. If we had known this, we would have provoked it and gotten a video of the snake in action. With our luck next time it will be a copperhead!