It’s an early spring morning, and my field
season begins with a burn.
I’m back again to help hunt Rattlesnakes for a
mark/recapture study in The usual crew is here, and we fan out in search
of stumps exposed by the controlled burn.
Although some logs are still smoldering, it’s been a few days since
the fire, time enough for snakes to return to the surface and bask near their
hibernacula. Sure enough, in just a
few minutes Mike spots this tiny neonate Copperhead, perfectly posed right
out in the open.
We walk the burn for an hour, but find nothing else, so it’s time to
check tin. We uncover a placid Racer
and a nasty Corn Snake (go figure).
Mark takes particular delight as the spring-loaded snake jumps up and
nails me repeatedly while I’m trying to take close-ups.
Later in the day, at the edge of a field surrounded by broom straw,
Mark lifts an isolated piece of tin.
He jumps back in revulsion --- “My God, that’s disgusting,” --- and
quickly lowers the sheet metal to cover the awful sight. “Take a look.”
So I raise the tin, and there is the most beautiful Corn Snake I’ve ever seen in the wild.
Another flip reveals what has become an all too common sight in the
South, an angry mound of fire ants taking over the tin that God gave to
reptiles (I think that’s what it says in the Bible). But then a closer look at the far end finds
a very cautious Canebrake doing its best to peacefully coexist.
Another
Canebrake, this time a juvie, is found sunbathing on the pine straw.
It was good to find
Canebrakes, but our real target was a Diamondback. Several days of searching produced only one
recapture, and we were beginning to suspect the EDBs were already away from the
stumps, hiding now under vegetation.
Our suspicions were confirmed when we tracked one of the radio-tagged
specimens to its location in thick
wire grass.
For the most part, that was it for the study site, this time around. Not too many snakes, but at the end of the day, my appreciation for the quiet beauty of this place continues to grow with each return visit.
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