Eastern Diamondback on the SerpenCo farm!

Connie found this critter near the storage shed this afternoon. I guess it was hoping the sun would come out for a while. I guess it is about 3 ft long. Didn't seem to get too upset with us walking all around it and my taking photos. Kept an eye on us, but no tail rattling or any other indication that it was too concerned about us.

Guess we have to watch where we put our feet for a few days until it moves on along in it's travels.

Looks like the EDB might be moving in to stay. It was out sunning itself by the storage shed again today around 3pm. Kind of scrawny looking, but seems none too concerned about Connie and I walking around it.

I'm not sure about the validity of this, but I have been told that some rattlers are not rattling as a warning do the the snakes that are more likely to rattle being consistently captured for rattlesnake roundups and such. Perhaps the large amount of capturing and killing of rattlers is forcing a new evolution of non rattling rattlers. If that snake is one of them, then he is probably rattling on the inside.

Well, the one Connie found last year was definitely from the old school then! That was a BIG one and he was rattling enough to throw the rattles off of the tail.

Unfortunately, I had to relocate this smaller one. He was camped out right in front of the shed. We have a guy pick up the trash bags every week and also get rodent chow delivered every other week, and there was too great of a possibility that one of those people could have stepped on the rattler and gotten bit. At the very least, if they had seen it they would most certainly have killed it thinking they were doing their good deed for the day.

So I lifted him up on my hook and placed him in a five gallon bucket and Connie and I drove out into the Apalachicola National Forest (a 10 minute drive) and released him out there. He NEVER rattled even once during the whole time.

Wish he had picked a more out of the way place to hang out.