Saturday, July 23, 2016

Copperhead snakes engage in nightly summertime feeding congregation

Via William Bellamy

 Outdoorsmen know to keep an eye out for copperheads when they're in the woods, but now the venomous snakes are gathering in groups on freshly mowed lawns. Here are some other things you probably weren't worried about, but really should be.  Photo: Picasa
 The only Copperhead I like is a dead one.

The first copperhead was not a big deal; if you live in the country surrounded by healthy oak/pine forest you expect to come across one of these common, smallish, generally non-aggressive but potentially dangerous pit vipers whose cryptic camouflage gives them their name.

Our chickens regularly catch, kill and eat these venomous snakes when the fowl find them under the duff or rotted logs or other cover when they are foraging in the woods surrounding our place. And I can count on my heart stopping for a couple of beats a half-dozen or so times a year when I chance upon one while cleaning brush/limb/log piles or otherwise rooting around in copperhead habitat on the property.
But by the time I'd had my sixth nocturnal copperhead encounter in a week, I knew this was different.

More @ Chron

10 comments:

  1. What an amazing thing. Thanks for sharing this, Mr. Brock. I've been a snake lover all my life and never heard of anything like this.

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  2. Nope, nope nope.. My neighbors landscaper has killed at least 2 with the mower that had come out of the pines between our yards.. I haven't seen anything but rat snakes yet but I can pretty much guarantee a copperhead will not survive any encounter we might have.. Nope..

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    1. They used to like to stay under Orchard Grass shocks, so when you stuck your pitchfork into them to throw up on the wagon, they'd slither out running over my shoes sometimes. Not something I liked at all.

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  3. My first memory memory of copper heads as a kid was my mom chopping one's head off with a garden hoe. It had gotten too close to us kids. As as a farm girl she knew what to do.

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    1. As as a farm girl she knew what to do.

      Yes, indeed.

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  4. One of my dogs was bit at about 10pm with the cicadas singing. She made it through the night okay; the big dogs usually survive. Of the poisonous snakes, the copperhead is the least deadly.

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  5. Replies
    1. I'm not fond of snakes though a King snake under your house should be allowed to stay as it will kill all other snakes and is not poisonous.

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