$h!t. I'm glad we don't have many snakes here! They're very uncommon here. I've only ever seen a snake in the wild twice. Both times they were harmless little Garter snakes.
How do they get up there though? (well I know, they slither up the pole and up the arm, but I mean I've never see this around here!) The worst we get are birds nests and paper wasp nests. I'll take the paper wasps over the birds though. The bees don't chew the wires and don't make has much of a mess, though when it comes to evict the tenant it's usually less painless getting rid of the birds lol. The wasps usually won't go down without a fight lol.
The pole this fixture was on had some English Ivy on it,but I still don't know what the Garter would find intriguing about climbing up there and finding it's way into the arm. Yeah the paper wasps are a pain literally lol,always good to be armed with a can of wasp & hornet spray or brake cleaner lol.
BTW what's with the black tape stuff around the slipfitter? Was the 1-1/4" mast too small? If that's the case, they could have flipped the slipfitter bracket around for 1-1/4" instead of 2".
Interesting lol. You'd think the plate would have been flipped the right way if this was the OEM arm lol. Maybe the people at the factory aren't the brightest (no pun).
At first I was thinking this was some sort of birdguard but I quickly debunked that as the stupidest thing ever since it wouldn't be stopping them from getting inside lol