Wife just came in and said that she saw a snake that was kind of cranky and when she got withing 10 feet of it the head came up, testing the air, did not coil and soon crawled up under the office siding. She thinks it was a rattle snake about 15" long but not sure. Could be, she knows what they are and we are only about 250 feet from Willow Creek which is known for them.
jud
Jud,
Probably cranky because of all the water running off the Cascades this year. It is just looking for a warm DRY place to sleep.
Joe
If your within 250' of an area that has rattlesnakes, then you have rattlesnakes in your yard from time to time....but I'm sure you already know that. Couldn't tell you what kind without a better description or photo.
Funny story. My cousin was up in the woods cutting firewood. Him and his partner saw a large rattlesnake (36"L) laying in the road soaking up some sun. They decided to kill it and take it down for a friend to eat. Don't ask me;) Anyway they screwed around with it long enough to get it mad (scared). It decided to crawl under the Ford truck and into the engine compartment, with the engine running. By the time they got done cleaning out their shorts, it had worked it's way on top of the transmission, under the cab. No one was brave enough to crawl under the truck to get it out. They drove off down the gravel road for approx. 45 minutes. They stopped at the nearest friends house. That rattlesnake was still under there buzzing like crazy. They decided to squirt a cold hose under there and see if that would flush him out....well it did and he took off "running" when he hit the ground. No one was ready for it either. Now if it was me I'd probably let that poor guy go, but it was near their home, so it had to be killed. They threw a couple rocks....missed, unloaded a pistol....missed, finally ran and got a shotgun and missed 2 shots, then the 3rd finally did the poor guy in. Funny what adrenline will do for you in a hectic moment(both the snake and my cousin).
JRL
The smaller rattlesnakes will not always have a rattle, they will usually have a button and the last inch our so of the tail will have a clearly defined black and white stripe. JRL
A 20 year old was messing with one a couple of years ago and got one fang in the thumb. Got anti venom quick enough to not loose any meat. Had a horse get bit 25 years ago, he lived, had to give him human anti venom to keep his airway open, ended up with a cavity in his nose.
jud
She described the end of tail as being black, diamond markings, I was asking about the head, bull shakes are also marked that way.
jud
Ok here is a snake I met last week out on my property. California King snake. They are fairly well tempered. I have heard you can pick them up if they are not startled or irritated. I have also heard they will die of heart failure if you work them up too much.
It is actually kind of weird. They kill rattlesnakes by constriction, yet as a defensive move, they rattle their tail just like a rattlesnake. When there are dry leaves around, it sounds very similiar.
One of the surveyors I worked for when I first started out was a rattler magnet. Snakeproof chaps and a sidearm were a must. We generally tried to leave them alone, but one day he killed 15 in just one afternoon.
King Snakes
are definitely "good" snakes. My next door neighbor called a few days ago to get a snake out of her pool filter. It was a King Snake that I turned loose in the shrubs between our yards. They eat snakes but they also eat mice and other rodents too.
Andy
we are only about 250 feet from Willow Creek
Most likely it just a harmless water snake. People get them mixed up with moccasins and sometimes rattlers.
Here's a couple of Brown Water Snakes.
King Snakes
Ya, they eat rattlers. Thats what I like about them.
