Find The Snake In Picture

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a34383855/viral-snake-in-leaves-photo/


Good afternoon all,

There are a few pictures to look at.

A copperhead snake is in picture.

I admit that even after looking at last picture with marking, I did not see the creature.

Lesson learned by me is that next time to the well house ......

 

https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/Search.php?stext=paint carrier


Good afternoon all,

Had to retrieve a pulp catalog to present an idea.

When at this shack, I never touch a woodpile in non-winter weather unless I spray something like ammonia on it to send away unwanted homesteading snakes.

For evac purposes, on my list of never getting done, was to make something ... so simple it's about the same thing ... like featured in above link from Forest Suppliers, the # 55560 3 paint can holder for belt.

Here at shack, for economy, I use large capy sprayers with mist nozzle.

For an evac, instead of a field jacket pocket with a can of DEET - as per season - and a wasp spray - as per season, should really get around to adding a vertical axis sprayer to address the snake matter if situation allows. It's easy enough to make something after getting the canvas type of materia, some wide can or th spray bottle to be used and then some sewing for attaching to a belt. Liquid need not be ammonia.

......

Please do not ever comment on my sewing skills. They're bad but better than my painting skills.

Call mt a wacko but if I do see a copperhead, I talk to them with standard line like "Snake, get the hell out of here or I call Moses and Ricki Ticki Tavi - Kipling's mongoose character believe in "Jungle Story".


Prep. prep, prep
and
factor in safety

 

couldn't find the copperhead...shivers

ricki tiki tavi is in the anthology of short stories by kipling called "jungle book" i believe or it may have been a stand alone story by kipling...one of my fav's(i hate all snakes)

 

I've walked up on way to many copperheads and most of them, that hard to see. Some times I smell them before I see them. They have an odor that smells like cucumbers.

 

The good thing about copperheads, in general at least where I live, is that they are not very aggressive and depend on their camouflage for protection. I have stepped over or beside more copperheads than I can count and never had one strike me. Rattle Snakes and Cottonmouths will nail you if you get too close to them. They often start striking at you before you are close as a warning.

I know a couple of people that are big time flower gardeners that mulch with pine bark and such that have been nailed several times. One little old lady that I used to work for had been nailed 6 or 7 times and after the second time it stopped having much effect on her and she doesn't even go to the doctor anymore. Those little buggers do love to snuggle up in loose mulch under a bush or among the flowers.

I had a problem with them getting in my garden until a pair of peppered king snakes moved in and became my best friends. They got so used to me that if I was working in the garden and one was in the row I was working on I would just pick them up and set them on the next row. King snakes are the BOMB and will eat all the copperheads in the area.

 

Good morning Wally,

Thank you for the correction to story name by Kipling.

It's appreciated.

I got psychologically molded by these stories. Loved 'em.

There was a song late 1950s ... maybe very early 1960s called "Bin Bon Bay". This song always reminded me of the stories about the 19th century Bombay and Calcutta.

Besides the stories and songs, was an avid reader of cartoon strip "Terry and the Pirates".

Again, thanks for post. I'm probably not going to do much reading any more but will be ensuring that my grandkids have these Kipling stories in their room. Whenever I send them stuff, I enclose a map of area in envelope.

 

I've never seen a copperhead be aggressive to anyone that wasn't trying to harm them. Most of the rattlesnakes up here are just a little more aggressive than copperheads. Down south, that has not been my experience. Got nailed by a rattlesnake in 83 in Florida and had many cottonmouths chase me in NC. Not a fan of southern snakes. Less of a fan of tropical snakes. They have given me reason for bad blood between us. LOL

Dale

 

A cottonmouth water moccasin will strike at you and come at you from 10 feet away. that snow wite mouth jumping at you out of the tall grass will just scare the snot out of you. The thing is that they are doing this as a warning to you and not actually as an aggressive attack. One of my first jobs when I was a kid was as a flagman for crop dusting and planting rice fields. MAN, those rice fields were loaded with snakes and they would sun on the top of levies that I had to cross. At first, they would panic me when they struck at me and moved at me but I earned that even if you don't back up they will only come just so close and then slip away. They are doing this as a rattle snakes does his rattle to avoid a fight rther than start one. To me, the worst thing about them is that they STINK when they get all pissy! It is an indescribable smell but one that once you smell it you will then always KNOW it when you smell it.

There are actually a couple of snakes that will go after you and just scare t=you to death. We have a long skinny snake that we called a blue racer when I was a kid that would chase you away from its nesting area and a Texas Rat Snake is just pure agression. No poison but they will stand their ground then attack you and bite the crap out of you. They don't have fangs but they do have teeth. I've seen a rat snake chase a dog a lot of times.

The CURE for a snake infestation, especially around a pond is to turn the pigs out on them. a pig will eat a snake like spaggette and they don't seem to be very botherd by getting bit. We had a problem with a pond. you couldn't walk up to the bank without having to kick several snakes out of your way. We put up a temporary fence around the pond and turned a half dozen pigs in on it. They slaughtered those snakes and in a few weeks there were no snakes left.

 

This is just one reason why you hike with a dog like a German Shepard. Great protection on so many levels. Especially for woman and human predators... In the case of a snake, the dog should alert you to it.

 

Think I found it...

 

Most of the cottonmouths I've encountered did back away after there bluff. While working in the North Carolina swamps doing beaver control I had 2 that were not so inclined. The first (little over 3 feet long) kept coming until it struck and got hung up in my hip waders. Had heavy weight LaCrosse hip waders and the rubber must have just not let the snake let go. I didn't get bit but it had to be an interesting dance before that snake lost it's life. The second time I kept backing away but the snake kept coming. After about 20 feet of this I started shooting but didn't kill it until I was falling into the main channel over my head. When I bobbed back up trying to swim with waders on, the dead snake floated past my face still twitching. I can laugh at those now.

I've seen a number of hogs snake bit and never saw any bit by hemotoxic venomous snakes die. Have seen a couple bit by cobras that dropped dead. I guess they aren't as resistant to neurotoxin as they are hemotoxin.

Dale

 

Snakes are a lot like people there are always a few asshats out there in any group. Most of the water moccasins that I have dealt with are what we call Stump Tail moccasins that might be three or four feet long but nearly as big around as my calf. They are well-fed I guess and don't have many predators that bother them out in the swamps and in the flooded rice fields. I had one that absolutely stood his ground but he had pieces of skin hanging off of him and probably had either just started or was just finishing shedding a layer of skin. they are pretty ill-tempered when they are doing that but are not going to chase you.

they don't really want to waste their precious venom on you if are not a serious threat they will often false strike at you even to the point of bumping you with their snout and not sinking their fangs into you. Fortunately, the three poisonous snakes that we have in the US are not very aggressive and mean. If the Texas Rat Snakes had poison it would be a killer like the Cobra.

They are mean little bastards and will attack a person in what is basically a territorial dispute. I had to kill one of the ornery little suckers this year. he tried to lay claim to the door to my shop! I went out there one evening and when I went in the door he landed on my freaking shoulders hissing and trying to bite me. To say that he scared the crap out of me is a truly MASSIVE understatement. Even when I threw him off of me he was not willing to back off so I sent him off to snake heaven.

Normally I am willing to share my space in my shop with them because it keeps the rats and mice out. I even had a little screech owl that lived in there for a couple of years.

 

The biggest (girth and length) cottonmouth I ever saw was in Brownsville TX and I did not know they could get that big. It was on a little island out in a pond with what looked like 100 nutria living with it. I'm guessing it got so large eating nutria. It was about 13 foot long and the diameter of a soccer ball. It looked like it barely fit in a nutria tunnel. Hope to never see one that size again.

Dale

 

LOL, many years ago I was working down in Houston and spending the night there three nights a week. There was a small reservoir nearby so I got in the habit of going there and fishing for an hour or two every evening before going to the motel for the night. One evening I saw a snake coming across the middle of the lake towards me and it came up on the bank about 30 yards from me. That thing was INSANE!!!! I'm talking 20 feet long and as big around as a basketball. I EVACUATED. I checked with a local the next day at work and he laughed and told me that it was harrold and was sort of a pet for the parks and wildlife people that ran that little lake. Harrold was a not kidding anaconda. They are not sure where he came from but since this lake was an expeimental lake they let him alone and told the locals to do the same.

This ws a cool lake. they had tried all sort of special different fish there o see how they did wih the native species. The water was even brackish enough that they had several saltwater species in it like Redfish and Flounder. There were also a few surviving nile perch from an experiment with them. Can you imagine hooking something that looks sort of like a 5 or 6 foot long bass? It was also just full of aligators so swimming in it was forbidden and not even a fool would do it. Gators are generally pretty nice critters but overcrowding makes them get terirorial as hell and that isn't good news for swimmers. I swam with them most of my life and never once had one bother me.

I was raised near the coast. the rivers there were fresh water on the surface and salt water down deep. They put in a saltwater dam just above where I usually fished. It came up to about 5 feet from the surface and prevented the salt water from getting pushed into the creeks and causing fish kills. Every once in a while you would be fishing for bass or some other totlly freshwater fish and suddenly spot a shark fin come up and check out your lure. We were about 30 river miles from the coast and had crabs and saltwater fish mixed in with the fresh water fishing.

 

That wasn't a Cottonmouth Moccasin.
Wrong location and wrong size.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agkistrodon_piscivorus
Agkistrodon piscivorus is the largest species of the genus Agkistrodon. Adults commonly exceed 80 cm (31 in) in total length (including tail); females are typically smaller than males. Total length, per one study of adults, was 65 to 90 cm (26 to 35 in).[13] Average body mass has been found to be 292.5 to 579.6 g (10.32 to 20.44 oz) in males and 201.1 to 254.1 g (7.09 to 8.96 oz) in females.[14][15]

Occasionally, individuals may exceed 180 cm (71 in) in total length, especially in the eastern part of the range.[16]

Although larger ones have purportedly been seen in the wild,[17] according to Gloyd and Conant (1990), the largest recorded specimen of A. p. piscivorus was 188 cm (74 in) in total length,[18] based on a specimen caught in the Dismal Swamp region and given to the Philadelphia Zoological Garden.

This snake had apparently been injured during capture, died several days later, and was measured when straight and relaxed.[19] Large specimens can be extremely bulky, with the mass of a specimen of about 180 cm (71 in) in total length known to weigh 4.6 kg (10 lb).

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I am no fan of anacondas or pythons. I figure I was a visitor in there lands back at the time so unless it was needed, I never killed them. I have climbed trees to get out of there way, but those are different stories. I think the biggest I ever saw was in the Philippines. It was a huge (20 feet+) reticulated python out in a mangrove swamp. We thought it was a log floating toward us at first. When the point man screamed out what it was, we climbed trees. LOL! Real fast like. If that thing would have looked up at one of us, it would have probably been fed grenades. Never seen a snake that big since. Not even in any of the zoos I've visited.

I learned to respect our gators down south. The seemed calm to me compared to Crocodiles I've been around in other countries. The Philippines had huge salt water crocs. Australia had some bruisers too. I always hated being in the swamps in Asia. Especially at night. Always expected to die in a bad way.

Dale

 

Saw one in the grass the other day.

Thought it was dead and stepped right up to it.

Thought wrong. Thank God he didn't strike. Was a baby too so that would not have been a good time.

 

It is spooky how well camouflaged they are. Even seeing it outlined, and being able to find it in the picture I couldn't tell the business end. I have stepped over rattlesnakes, but never a copperhead.