snakes

[CatFisH]

this has been my week for snakes....eased on down to the swamp Sunday to see what was flowering...poison ivy out...moskeeters biting...ticks abundant...sawbriars shredding my clothes....

leaning over looking for Bloodroot...this lil reptile slid out from underneath some ferns...

managed to grab him and get a few shots...

meet Mr Copperhead...looks to be a youngun about a foot or so long...I'm sure his momma was close by somewhere but couldnt find her...this lil critter would deliver an ugly bite...prolly not fatal but certainly there would be some complications and serious tissue necrosis in the bite area..pulled out my Spyderco Military and he chomped down on some S30V...small as it was, he still left a good portion of venom on it...sorry bout the shaky pics but my photographer was freakin out...Copperheads are a fairly common snake in these parts along with Timber Rattlers and Cottonmouths...all of which are pit vipers...by far the most aggressive is the Cottonmouth...I really dont like catchin them...they usually stand their ground and already irrittated by the time you pin them...all three of these venomous snakes have hemotoxins that work on the blood...here is your disclaimer...dont play with poisonous serpents...you may get bit

 

[CatFisH]

on the way to work traveling down a paved county road I encountered this beautiful specimen....Speckled Kingsnake

knowing he would be flattened by the next gravel truck, I caught him and transported him down to the swamp....

this species really becomes tame after a few minutes of handling them....he'll prolly have some deep psychological scars from this experience with me....eased him down to the ground and watched him slide away...

 

[RovingArcher]

Hey CatFisH, great photos. That's the first speckled kingsnake I've seen. Beautiful snake. Ours is the banded variety. I tend to run into the slithering masses when I don't have a camera handy. Got to watch a couple rattlers do their mating dance in the middle of a logging road about 5 years ago. Got a green rattler skin set aside and when I find another one to match, I'll add them to my longbow.

 

[Justin Time]

wow, these add an extra dimension to a day in the woods . great pics too

 

[Paganwolf]

Awesome Catfish great picks! we only have 3 native species in the UK the Grass snake, Smooth Snake and the Adder our viper compaired with your copper head its a bee sting though! nice one

 

[Wayne]

Nice Pics. Did you let the copperhead go?

Its a shame there is nothung in the UK that can bite back.

 

[CatFisH]

thanks guys...i dont kill snakes venomous or not...the little Copperhead was released where I found him...he occupys a role in the ecosystem,otherwise he wouldnt have been there...

indeed it makes for an interesting day in the woods with a plentiful supply of poisonous reptiles about...tends to make one watch where they step and sit

the Speckled Kingsnake is unique to this geographic area....there are many species of kingsnakes

catching, holding, diggin out the digicam and driving down the road with a snake wrapped around your arm takes a bit of balance...fortunately I have had lots of practice

 

[tomtom]

Awesome Catfish great picks! we only have 3 native species in the UK the Grass snake, Smooth Snake and the Adder our viper compaired with your copper head its a bee sting though! nice one

dont you just hate the fact that there is no chance of death by snake venom every time you go in to the woods, i know i do!

 

[Paganwolf]

Also King Snakes eat other snakes so at the size of that copper head to the size of the King it would have been on its menue

 

[Gary]

dont you just hate the fact that there is no chance of death by snake venom every time you go in to the woods, i know i do!

Tomtom joking aside I do. I think its a shame that all our native predators are gone, I truely do!

 

[tomtom]

i totally agree, predator or non predator its a shame we have lost so many of our native creatures!

 

[hootchi]

I couldn't agree more with the pair of you.

Imagine the wolverine, wild boar, wolf, brown bear, giant elk, or the lynx back. Sadly there is just not not enough room and even sadder all these animals, bar the giant elk, were lost through hunting.

 

[Gary]

I couldn't agree more with the pair of you.

Imagine the wolverine, wild boar, wolf, brown bear, giant elk, or the lynx back. Sadly there is just not not enough room and even sadder all these animals, bar the giant elk, were lost through hunting.

Hunting yes - but not just for sport or even food, sadly most were just destroyed to make way for our speices - one thing most of us humans dont like is a little competion it seems!

 

[ssj]

Catfish-Great shots of the snakes! I've had run-ins with moccasins and copperheads when I lived in Arkansas. No bites but some surprises. Both scare me! A lot more than rattlers. At least the rattler is a gentleman most of the time (unless you step on him) and lets you know he's about. All the venomous snakes are reason to keep your wits about you.

The neatest snake I ever held was called an indigo snake. I suspect he is related to the king snake. Very powerful.

It's a shame that the more deadly animals have left the English shores. Takes a bit of spice out of roaming around the country. You are left with most deadly animal of all-The female tourist with young.

Steve

 

[tomtom]

one thing most of us humans dont like is a little competion it seems!

i dont think you will find many species who do?

 

[Bob Hurley]

Just a note or two on American snakes for those who haven't experienced them (can't let the Aussies have all the "deadliest this and that" fun, can we?).

I concur that the average rattlesnake is generally a gentleman - or a coward, I'm not sure which. You won't see as many as you might because they are very good at quietly slinking away. Canebrake rattlers, like a lot of snakes that spend a lot of time in the water, are much more aggressive. The only time I've seen Steve Irwin look genuinely panicked was during an incident with a couple of rattlers that weren't in a gentlemanly (nor cowardly) mood.

A copperhead is a sneaky little ambusher. He'll coil up in an amazingly small place, often around a tuft of grasses, and wait for you to get close enough that he can bite. Fatalities are rare, but the wounds are nasty and heal very poorly most of the time. I know a lady that nearly lost a leg to a bite; yet, I know another fellow who was bitten and decided that a fifth of bourbon was the better cure and survived with few problems.

Cottonmouths are territorial. They're the only poisonous snake here that will seek out noise and disturbances in their home turf. They have a nasty habit of biting several times instead of once, and the wounds are much like those of the copperhead, except a cottonmouth is generally a bigger snake.

We don't have coral snakes here in the Appalachians and I know nothing of them, although I can identify one quickly.

All that said, I've never been bitten although I was struck once by a copperhead. He missed and caught bootheel instead of ankle, and I made an orderly tactical retreat in a style we call "like his hair's afire and his a** is catching". I also seined up a copperhead while gathering minnows for fish bait; this was in the middle of a shallow river and there were several of us there who did not see him until we turned over a rock to chase the minnows out. He had to have been there underwater for at least five to ten minutes or one of us would have spotted him. They like to eat small fish, and cleaned out my parents' outdoor goldfish pond so many times that we quit stocking it.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

The old cowboys called rattlesnakes 'buzzworms' and ironically they are losing this trait! So called 'rattlesnake roundups' have virtually obliterated them from many areas. The result is that the few survivors who don't display rattling warnings breed babies who also don't rattle! I've been drybit twice, which is very lucky considering @ 20% of all bites are non venomous. My major fear was the idiot with an old Cutter's snakebite kit who wanted to carve Xs and suck on my ankles I woke up once to find a very dormant Mojave Green curled up next to my bag and snow o nthe ground. I'm sitting there like a dummy ( no caffeine yet) going, "oh, look at the snow. Oh, look at the deadliest of all ratllers snuggled up by my hip." My Biology Proff gathered the clas around me. " people, I was hoping we'd see a green on the trip, and HERE IT IS. Chris, don't disturb it." Like I was planning to

 

[Spacemonkey]

My 20 acres of Spain in Catalunya has many large snakes, but only the adders are 'dangerous' They are much bigger and faster than the ones here in the UK though. We do have a real problem with wild boar though, but nothing a 12 bore doesn't cure. There is a resident eagle that treats us to a flyby on many occasions, which I'm hoping isn't taking a liking to my small dog, and I'm told the odd scorpion, but I haven't found any yet, and they haven'e found me either. The lizards are usually of the cute gecko variety, and everywhere. Further north near the Pyrennees we still have wild wolves. I have seen two in Andorra living 'domestically', and they were definitely wolves IMO. And in the local river we have 2 metre long Catfish who have been known to take small dogs-last summer one swallowed a Yorkie Terrier whole that was swimming. The Brit owners obviously didn't have a clue that they were there...