Can You Spot the Copperhead

Can You Spot the Copperhead?

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TOPIC: Can you spot the coperhead?
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/6221302ea41915b9?hl=en
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== 1 of 5 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 4 2008 12:05 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

ENTS,

Many of you are involved in field work in the autumn after the leaves have fallen. I wanted to post this to the group, I know I will be criticized because this may be slightly off topic.

You will see this, this fall, when all the leaves drop on the ground near the privacy fence or the storage house and the underbrush gets crowded with leaves and limbs. Be careful when you are out in the field or raking those fall leaves.

CAN YOU SPOT THE COPPERHEAD? Probably not. Scroll down to next pic

Here it is:

Be careful everyone.

Edward Frank

== 2 of 5 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 4 2008 4:55 pm
From: "Beluzo Gary A."

Great image to show students about camouflage. Where was the photo
taken?

Gary

== 3 of 5 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 4 2008 4:59 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

Gary,

I don't know. It was sent to me as one of the circulating emails people forward.

Ed

== 4 of 5 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 4 2008 5:01 pm
From: JamesRobertSmith

Damn! I could NOT see it! Without the second photo, there's no way I
could have picked it out!

I've seen many copperheads in my many hundreds of hikes and
backpacking trips. But I'll bet I've stepped near many, many more that
I never even noticed.

== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 4 2008 8:36 pm
From: "Will Blozan"

Ed,

Not off topic at all. Thanks for the great photo- I will share it with my
kids.

Will F. Blozan

President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 2 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 8:27 am
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
I agree, the forest is much more than just the supernumerary trees...I remember well the first time I smelled a copperhead in the woods! Kentucky woods weren't always a friendly woods...
-DonRB

== 3 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 8:32 am
From: "Edward Frank"

Don,

These are the lyrics to Paradise by John Prine;

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat Chorus:

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat Chorus:

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Repeat Chorus:

== 4 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 3:08 pm
From: "Beluzo Gary A."

Is it true that a copperhead smells like cucumber? I wonder how far
away this works and does it always work?

G

== 6 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 3:12 pm
From: "Will Blozan"

Only if you are downwind.

Will F. Blozan

President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 7 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 3:13 pm
From: "Beluzo Gary A."

Hey WIll! Okay, but how close do you need to be if you are downwind,
feet?

G

== 9 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 3:22 pm
From: "Will Blozan"

Gary,

Just slightly out of striking distance! I have not personally smelled a
copperhead but have had several bites on my boots.

Will F. Blozan

President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.

== 12 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 10:19 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

ENTS-
Well, it's an interesting thread I've missed, traversing the Sierras as I have been doing this week!
Cucumber is close, more like watermelon to me...how far? I suppose it has more to do with the environment...but far enough away to put on the binders and start looking!
-D

== 13 of 13 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 5 2008 10:30 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
Good recall!
I like John Prine for a lot, lot, lot of songs, but few for better reason than his "Paradise"...when we lived in Clay County, it didn't take much for us to drive an hour and catch Sy Khan, John McCutcheon, and others still singing and writing about what mattered to Kentuckians! We had the pleasure of floating many of the SE rivers, and the Green was the smoothest!
-DonRB

There are three snakes in the photo.

Russ

== 2 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 10:19 am
From: "Beluzo Gary A."

Hi Russ,

What was the weather like that day and the night before? Are they
getting close to their denning areas?

Thanks.
Gary

== 4 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 12:22 pm
From: Andrew Joslin

They look like Eastern Timber Rattlesnake gathering for hibernation.

Just to keep the good mood going for vipers here's an Eastern Timber
Rattlesnake photographed at its den a few years ago in eastern Mass.:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturejournal/11274713/

There's quite a variety of color morphs for this species, this one is
very light. Being in the presence of these reptiles in the woods
inspires some of the feelings I get being in proximity to old-growth trees.
-Andrew

== 5 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 11:56 am
From: "Beluzo Gary A."

I agree...Eastern Diamondbacks are found from South Carolina south and
west I believe. There are certainly no eastern diamondbacks in VA.

Gary
On Oct 7, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Andrew Joslin wrote:

They look like Eastern Timber Rattlesnake gathering for hibernation.

Just to keep the good mood going for vipers here's an Eastern Timber
Rattlesnake photographed at its den a few years ago in eastern Mass.:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturejournal/11274713/

There's quite a variety of color morphs for this species, this one is
very light. Being in the presence of these reptiles in the woods
inspires some of the feelings I get being in proximity to old-growth
trees.
-Andrew

== 6 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 4:02 pm
From: JamesRobertSmith

Wow!

I've never encountered Rattlesnakes in WV. However, a few years ago I
visited Trout Pond, the only natural lake in WV and its shores were
totally infested with copperheads. Every few feet we'd look down and
see one or two of them lying on the shore. It was the highest
concentration of venomous snakes that I've encountered anywhere with
the single exception of Mount Palomar in California, which was
completely infested with timber rattlers.

== 7 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 4:36 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com

Gary:

It was on Sunday and there have been a lot of fairly hot dry days with very
cool nights. In that particular area I would say the nights had been in the
high 30s or low 40s with daytime highs in the low 70s to mid 80s. On some of
the protected rocky areas around Coopers Rock I'd bet there were some
lingering 90s last week.

In central West Virginia we just had the driest September since records
started being kept.

Russ

== 9 of 9 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 7 2008 4:45 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com

Gary/ENTS:

The reason I originally saw the photo from Coopers Rock is because of the
photos of a rattlesnake that was in a local online paper over the weekend.
The pictures were taken on our property by State Highway workers.

http://www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user_view&db=articles_hurherald&id=31089

Russ

==============================================================================
TOPIC: rattlesnakes
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/b9f0918f06c481c0?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 9 2008 5:23 am
From: "Will"

While I have never smelled a copperhead, the Eastern Diamondback has a
particularly strong odor that you can smell from some distance away,
particularly in the morning. Fortunately rattlesnakes are not very
aggressive and I have walked within feet of many (never intentionally) and
never been struck at in my long career in the woods. Years ago I used to
wear leggings in the cooler months, too hot in the summer, but recently
haven't worn any in years. Even then they were worn primarily in thick
palmetto to protect your britches and legs from being shredded by the
sawtooth edges of the fronds. Around here the diamondback nests in gopher
holes and the smaller canebrake rattler, a southern cousin to the timber
rattler is much more commonly seen. It is a master of camouflage often not
visible till your right on him and even then will hold his ground and let
you walk right by him never moving or singing out. Here is a photo of one
nesting in the leaves in a hardwood bottom taken a few years back in late
winter. I had just gotten a digital camera and started carrying it with me.
He let me walk all around him snapping photos and never budged an inch or
sang out.

Will F

==============================================================================
TOPIC: copperhead encounters
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/6221302ea41915b9?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 9 2008 6:15 am
From: Elisa Campbell

I did step over one without realizing it when I was a teenager walking
with my twin sister and father in the woods near the C&O Canal in
Washington, DC area. I was leading the way on a trail, and stopped to
look around. My sister, directly behind me, pushed me forward. I had
stopped about an inch from a snake lying in the trail - fortunately not
ON the snake!
Elisa

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