Three copperheads

[Ozzy]

Last night I was driving home. I was going about 55 then all of a sudden, I saw a snake in the road and I was heading straight for it. I did the best I could to jerk the wheel and miss it, but I only had a fraction of a second to react. It was so close I wasn't sure if I hit it or not. There was a car right behind me so I was pretty sure that if I didn't hit it the other car did. I turned around and started back to where I saw the snake at full speed. On the way back I passed another snake in the road. I got to the first one and it was a 3 ft copperhead. I didn't have my camrea with me so I couldn't take any pics. I moved it off the road, and then turmed around to see if I could find the other one I saw. I found it and it was still alive, even though several cars had passed while I was stopped with the first one. While I was moving it off the road another car passed and I heard it run over something. After I moved the second one off the road I headed on the where I heard the car hit something. There was another 3 ft copperhead dead on the road. I think this was the snake I saw when I turned around to get the first one. All three of these copperheads were within about 500ft of each other. Although you nomaly find copperheads in pairs, I thought this was strange.

the dumb thing is that even though I didn't have my camera, I just got a new cell phone yesterday with a camera in it. I could have taken some shots with it but that thought never crossed my mine.

 

[Copper]

Are the nights getting colder so that they are moving toward the heat of the road? I remember the snakes and lizards doing that when I lived on the East Coast. There were tons of them. I find myself missing the east lately.

 

[The Griffin]

When I was visiting my parents in Springfield, MO years ago, I was chasing a skink and lost it in a pile of leaves. As I was looking, I noticed a thick body, impossibly long. I backed up and after using a twig to investigate, discovered FIVE Osage copperheads in a 4' x 4' patch of leaves, and I almost crawled into them. They were all adults. That gave me the shakes pretty bad, lol. This was in the Summer, BTW.
This was a small lake developement, and they must have hung out at that spot a lot, as a resisdent a year later hired somebody to go on the other side of the lake(no houses there, just woods) and kill them. Very unfortunate.
I guess the point I was making is, apparently copperheads(at least Osage) sometimes can be found in groups. In my youth, I had only seen the ones in Raleigh, NC as singles(are those Southern copperheads, Ozzy?)

Cheers,

Joe

 

[*Barracuda_45*]

I my self am not into hots but i can say this much more than likely they were in the road due to getting belly heat if the road had been warmed up by the sun durring the day or the area you came across them in had a high concentration of them and they were just on the move, but you can find alot of them together in one spot durring cool nights or times of hibernation or at times when alot of males are persueing a female for breeding. I did own a few Massasauga rattlesnakes and they to will concentrate all together in piles to keep warm durring cold nights or when hibernating and will use rocks and road ways to get belly heat at night when the sun has warmed up the surface durring the day. Im only into Boids at this time. Just my 2 cents worth.. Please becareful when working with or being near any hots.

 

[Ozzy]

It was pretty warm here yesterday, near 90. Last night warm pretty mild too, in the 70's when I came across them. It didn't surprise me that I found 3 on the road. I was suprised that I found 3 all right there together. I find snakes on the road all the time. If we have a heavy rain I take a drive to look for snakes. I always find them too. It's just wierd that the only snakes I found last night was within 500 ft of each other and they were all copperheads.

 

[RL7836]

Up north (here in NJ & PA), I see a number of snakes heading back to their winter denning areas. In one area, the number of garter snakes killed on the road in the spring & fall is astounding (& really sad).

Also, on a separate note - good to see Copper back and posting

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