I went for a nice hike today. The weather was beautiful, and I got to see some grand scenery. As I was walking back to my car along a dirt road I came upon a juvenile timber rattlesnake. It didn't have any rattles yet, but its head was definitely a rattlesnake's head, and its markings were rattlesnake markings. As I got close, it puffed out the part of its body behind its head. It was small, and its body tapered pretty quickly from the width of its head to its tale, giving it the appearance of a long triangle. To tell the truth, it was pretty strange looking.
Last week I went for a hike and saw a 4-foot rat snake. I thought it wasn't aware of me, but when I did some research afterward, I realized that its body was kinked, a classic stress response in these snakes. They often do this when they see people, apparently. (Thanks to wikipedia!)
2 comments:
I've never heard of a rat snake before.
I didn't know what it was when I saw it. My on-the-spot guess was king snake, basically because it has a cool name. "Rat snake" certainly doesn't sound very sexy.
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