Someone showed my wife an article about the connection of copperheads out at night and the presence of Circada (locust). The most interesting part being this:
"As darkness falls on a summer evening and cicada larvae begin emerging, copperheads head to their feeding stations.
"About 9 o'clock, copperheads start coming out of the woods, and they make a beeline for large oak trees," Gluesenkamp said. "It's really pretty incredible, and suggests copperheads may move a lot more and a lot farther than we thought."
The snakes take up stations at the base of trees or among the exposed roots where they easily pick off lumbering cicada larvae aiming to climb the trunk."
The whole article is here:
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Copperhead-engage-in-nightly-summertime-feeding-8399696.php
and another article here:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/hundreds-of-copperhead-snakes-removed-in-brazoria-county-neighborhood_20151123154745341
Both being very educational.
After I went to bed last night, my wife went snake hunting. This is what she found.
It happened just like the article said, crossing a trail between us and the neighbors house in a 50 foot area. All but one were headed toward a clump of trees near the front with a lot of noise coming from the circada.
James
[USER=292]@JaRo[/USER]
It is said they are in pairs so there is at least one more out there.
Locally, the cicada fest was a couple years ago.
:beer:
You have a good wife, JaRo.
Copperheads are also attracted by bug zappers as I learned the hard way. We had one in the yard an every dog we owned got bite by Copperheads over and over until I finally found out that the Copperhead eats mostly insects.
Shawn Billings, post: 382261, member: 6521 wrote: You have a good wife, JaRo.
Thank you Shawn, I am reminded of that quite often.
Made the mistake of sharing the above story with my wife. Neither of us are snake people.
About an hour later she was wasting time of Facebook when she discovered the following story. Enjoy.........................
I sat down in the cab of the skid steer as I had done hundreds of times before. I fasten my seat belt and lowered the operator armrests and secured the cab door and deactivated the auto lock. Part of a pre-startup checklist I fly through nearly on autopilot these days. I started the machine and began rumbling out of the barn doors and down the driveway on a mission to bring a new round bale out to all the hungry horses, but this would not be my day...
Unbeknownst to me and hiding in the roof of the skid loader was a 3 foot long black snake. What wormhole opened up to magically transport him in there is completely beyond my understanding, but there he was. In blissful ignorance I rattle down the road with horses looking on with anticipation as I jammed out to one of Taylor Swift's latest hits. Agitated with the fact that his house suddenly began to move (or perhaps he did not appreciate my eclectic musical preferences) he dropped down out of the ceiling and right down the back of my shirt.
Now, I don't really have a fear of snakes and in fact I feel like they're pretty cool, but when something large and I'm in a fight starts slithering down the back of your neck (taking the scenic route to your nether regions) you tend to freak out a little. Or a lot... In this case... I'm not proud.... Sadly, however, when you want to flip your shirt in the tiny cab of a skid steer you aren't going to get very far and your new reptilian friend is not going to be particularly impressed with your interpretive dance moves. With the loader bucket in the way of the door opening and the controls in autolock since I removed myself from the seat to perform a spirited rendition of the Western classic "there's a f**king snake in my pants". Since he only way to disengage the control lock out was to sit back down in the seat and strap back in (not a particularly appealing option with the snake now almost completely in my pants and making his way between my legs) I was hopelessly trapped in a level of hell Dante forgot to write about during his book. Calmly panicking as I weighed my options I noticed the impossibly small emergency escape hatch. Lacking the ability to kill the snake, teleport, or set myself on fire it's seemed to be the only clear choice.
Never before had I taken such great care when unfastening my belt, the top button of my pants and ever so gingerly slide the zipper south. with the snake and I occupying the same underwear it was my hope that as I exited the skid steer I could kick off my pants as I liberated myself from the 10th floor of Dante's hell. I pulled the red breakaway handle and carefully shoved the glass outward as I began to inch my way on top of the seat, out the window, and out of my snake infested pants. As if suspended by some sort of invisible cable I managed to levitate (ever so gently) out of the cab over the engine compartment before making what felt like a ten foot leap into the air before hitting the ground running. I managed to kick off both shoes, part ways with my pants, and was busy fishing the snake out of my underwear all while moving like a lightning across the gravel driveway.
As I flung the agitated Nope Rope into the grass the befuddled and somewhat exasperated faces of my equine companions spoke volumes as to the silent judgments they were casting on their half nude pet monkey. They stared on as I continued to make my escape the driveway shouting a newly invented language. It was not a proud day in the house of Kemp...
Man what a bad day...
[MEDIA=youtube]7FJQNeheRYk[/MEDIA]
Some Days the LIKE button just isn't good enough!!
[MEDIA=youtube]7FJQNeheRYk[/MEDIA]
We got 4 more last night. Thats 11 copperheads on 3 acres in two nights.
I wasn't aware until I read the article that copperhead would eat bugs. 8 out of 11 were within 50 feet of a security light on the transformer pole.
We bought the neighbors house last year and had the light turned off. Nobody is living there, it needs a lot of work. I'm just wondering if the snakes have been congregating in the brush between the houses for years and coming out to feed on bugs under the security light, and never left.
The moon came up an hour later last night. The circadas were not nearly as active according to my wife. The snakes were more scattered and not all going the same direction. We may have to wait till the next full moon.
James
The wife is deadly on copperheads! 😉
One more thing. She's gotten better at killing them with one chop! 😎
The last place you are likely to find me is on a snake hunt in the dark for fun. So.........................if you are wishing to avoid me, that would be a great starting point.
Holy Cow, post: 382459, member: 50 wrote: The last place you are likely to find me is on a snake hunt in the dark for fun. So.........................if you are wishing to avoid me, that would be a great starting point.
I assure you this was NOT FOR FUN. I would call it self preservation or survival. Since my wife has been bit twice in the last eleven years, she calls it REVENGE!!!
Jules J., post: 382375, member: 444 wrote: One more thing. She's gotten better at killing them with one chop! 😎
I had gone to bed early Friday night. She went out looking for snakes in the area she had seen one the night before and got one pinned down with the shovel. She left the shovel stuck in the ground holding the snake by the tail and turned around to get another shovel and there was another snake between her and the second shovel.
She has about 10 shovels scattered around three acres and she knows where every one of them is. I offered to get her some rat shot for her 22 but she declined. She did have boot on.
James
JaRo, post: 382470, member: 292 wrote: I had gone to bed early Friday night. She went out looking for snakes in the area she had seen one the night before and got one pinned down with the shovel. She left the shovel stuck in the ground holding the snake by the tail and turned around to get another shovel and there was another snake between her and the second shovel.
She has about 10 shovels scattered around three acres and she knows where every one of them is. I offered to get her some rat shot for her 22 but she declined. She did have boot on.
James
Good luck
Would you care to give a general location? So we can warn others and avoid. This doesn't sound like fun.
JaRo, post: 382469, member: 292 wrote: Since my wife has been bit twice in the last eleven years,
I would not wish that on anyone, as I hear the bites are quite painful. I would of taken you up on the ratshot offer, and enjoyed sending them to the afterlife with smoke and a flash, but to each their own!
I like .38 Special snake shot. It's a lot more effective.
.22 shot shells tend to just makes things mad.
Sounds like you have a lot of snake habitat there.
I think I'd be clearing brush, leveling the ground so it could be mowed.
I definitely wouldn't be walking out to my truck barefoot in the dark.
I wonder if you could transplant some king snakes...I know they eat rattlesnakes..maybe they would like Copperheads too?
You could get serious, and get a pistol like a judge, or governor, that shoots .410 shotshells. But then you get to find .410 shotshells. Not everyone sells those anymore, and when they do, they cost a bit more than 12 or 20 gauge shells do.
The only good snake is a @#$% snake, that is if vipers. No copperheads around here just Great Basin Rattle Snakes. Only one encounter on the farm so far this year.
My wife's nephew had one on his lot in Salt Lake City. All of a sudden leaving them be didn't seem such a good idea in his kids play ground.
