Snakes in the Grass

I guess they are everywhere ... we just don't see them

In the Summer, snakes are more active and you get to see more of them. I’ll show some pictures of snakes I’ve seen in just the last 2 days (I know where to find these pictures, they’re on my Huawei!).

Cicada Snake (some call them Timber Rattlers — a Protected Species)

So, Joan and I were hiking (collecting Chanterelle Mushrooms) this last Tuesday, and she says, “What’s that sound?” and I say, “sounds like a Cicada” (though the Cicada’s have come and gone). It was, of course, the Cicada Snake (get the clever alliteration?) (see Fig. 1). Others call it a Timber Rattler. I shot it (with my Huawei) and we waited till it went off the trail.

Fig. 1. A Timber Rattler in the grass.

Copper Heads

In Fig. 2, I show a Copper Head in the bushes in front of my house that I saw the next day. I let them be. In the past sometimes I’d get out the hose and chase them away — but, like seriously, the chances of me dying from a snake bite are just about way up there with dying from CoVid-1984, so I don’t get very excited. (Joan worries about dying from a Tick Bite! [I’ve had hundreds, if not thousands, of tick bites, and I haven’t died, yet. I worry, but for good reason, about important things, like being liquified and slurped up in a straw by invisible creatures from outer space, locally called Chiggers]).

Fig. 2. A Copper Head in my bushes.

Timber Rattler Snake Story

This had to have been about 35 years ago. So, I came home from work at the Cyclotron on day, and my brother MikE says, “I saw a huge Timber Rattler that literally stretched across the whole road. I stopped my car and watched it go up the hill”. I said, “Cool, let’s go find it!”. So I grabbed my camera and we parked our cars along the dirt/gravel road and started walking up the hill into the forest where MikE said he had seen it. And then we heard the Cicada Song (get again my clever alliteration?) and there it was, all coiled up, with its head up in front, and with its tail up in the back making a racket. I got a so-so picture of it (which I’m sure I could find, but it might take hours) but it wasn’t the best picture: I was afraid to even get to within 20 feet of it. And that Cicada Song was SO loud, it made we wonder how anyone could ever get bit by a Cicada Snake.

But, here’s the real story. We had two cars parked out there on the dirt road. And someone drove by and stopped to see what was up. And so we showed him the snake. The next day I saw that snake along the side of the road with its rattler cut off. Later that person came up my driveway and asked me if I would give him some of the pictures I had taken. I told him, “Timber Rattlers are a protected species here, and you killed one of them". He said, “Well, you know, I have kids”. And I told him, “Then go live in the city. This is their home and you are a guest here”.

So, really, I killed that snake — by bringing attention to it. Today they say, “If you see something, say something”. I’ve learned, “If you see something, keep your mouth shut and don’t draw any attention to it” (especially if “it” is someplace where there are lots of mushrooms [not really, that’s another joke or story that someday I could tell]).

Copper Head Snake Stories

Back when I was young (it must have been about ‘76) riding a motor cycle up from Florida, one night camping in a National Forest someplace, maybe in the Carolinas, there was a huge Copper Head. I cut off his head with my hatchet. Back then, I felt proud of that thing that I had done and took a picture of that big snake with my hatchet in the ground and it’s severed head. And I could probably find that picture. That’s the way I thought back then … that it was a “manly thing” to kill a snake. But, hey, I was just a young kid and didn’t know any better. I don’t think that way anymore.

I have a nice picture of a couple of cute baby Copper Heads that had just come out from their eggs and dried out and died on my front walk (I could find that picture, too, but it might take a few hours). I just left them there, and then after a few days, they were gone. Maybe I should have picked them up and put them in my house on a shelf where they would have made a nice “art work”.

One day, maybe 8 years ago, walking along a river bed collecting Chanterelles with Diane, I spotted a whole mother-load of Chanterelles up on the hillside. I looked for a good way up to get up to them, and saw a small animal trail. I started walking up that trail, and just as my left foot was about to go down, I looked down, and saw this huge coiled-up Copper Head. So, I stopped and didn’t put my foot down on top of him (or her, or maybe it was non-binary, I don’t know) and lifted up my foot and backed away. And so I called to Diane and said, “Come here, look at this beautiful snake” and pointed it out to her. She couldn’t see it. So, I said, “See that little stick across that little animal trail? And see that yellow leaf above it? And then the big brown leaf above that? And now right above that is a huge snake.” And then she saw it and jumped back. Camouflage is such an interesting thing. Once we had seen it, we could easily see it from 20 feet away on the other side of the creek bed. But until you “saw” it, it was invisible. Nashoba ignored it.

The same is true for Morell Mushrooms. I just can’t “see” them even when when I’m about to put my foot down and squash them. Why do they hide from me? Aren’t I a FunGuy?

Oh, just one last little short one about Rattlers. So, after a hard day’s work I convinced Bird that we should just go to the lake and take a swim. So, we’re walking up the dam in our shorts and Tevas, and there’s all these guys from Purdue University wearing boots and Kevlar overalls with radio detectors warning us that there were (some number, I don’t remember, 5 or 8) tagged-Rattlers on the dam. We just walked up and took off our clothes and went swimming. There were probably (certainly) snakes in the lake!