In the spring months, the mornings start off cool and windy, and the rocky grey landscape is lonely and silent with the exception of windblown vegetation rustling. Some mornings are even still cool enough that spirals of steam can be seen pouring from the mouth and nose as one exhales, especially during a labored climb to a mountain top study site. The dullness of the winter landscape is slowly transitioning into the vibrant verder glow that is the beauty of an Appalachian forest in full leaf. This is my favorite time of year.
While all the serpents are laying in sluggish rest beneath stones, I make my way on site under the still visible moon and set up my camera to capture their awakening with the morning sun. After setting up my camera, I take a seat many yards away – but close enough so I can manipulate the camera with a remote, and I wait. The climb caused blood to rush and warm my body; however, my metabolic warmth escapes into the ground bellow me and into the air around me, so I shrug on a long sleeve. This is always a good time for writing, it is in these moments when I am alone at some of the loftiest altitudes Georgia has to offer that I find the peace and quite to put a creative pen to paper.
Before I know it, the sun peeks high enough over the mountainous horizon that its photons wash across the landscape like an electromagnetic rain, much to the delight of my ectothermic friends. Once I see their scaly bodies ooze from beneath the stones, I click on the camera and run it until the batteries are dead. Here is a glimpse into a few of those moments. This video is sped up 400% in I-Movie; there are spaces of tens of minutes where the snakes simply do not move at all. The volume is down, and in some cases off because of the wind.
These timber rattlesnakes are dull, have a patina of dirt from being underground all winter, and one, as you will see, is deep in the blue of ecdysis, all signs of freshly emerged spring rattlesnakes.
Something that has always impressed me is how quickly the snakes re-surface from underground after I have set out the camera equipment. None of the fixed video I have taken is much more than a half hour to fifty minutes in length. This means the snakes are re-emerging after just a few minutes of my leaving the scene.
The response at the end is typical of when I return to gather my equipment. Whenever possible, they pull their coils inward in such a way that allows them to retreat with the head poised close to the more vulnerable tail. This allows for easy defense against anything that might try to grab the snake by the tail. I simply use a snake hook to gather my camera, and then leave to allow the snake to settle back down.
This video is only a brief glimpse into the complex life that a timber rattlesnake leads, but in these tiny moments a great deal about how they interact with their biotic and abiotic surroundings can be inferred. With these technologies, we are learning things that were once obscured to and even dismissed by the herpetological pioneers Klauber and Kauffeld.
I was seated on cold stone, obscured by dwarfed pine, bunch grasses, and a fragrant tangle of herbs. The morning air was just cold enough that sitting still was uncomfortable. All around the woods were beginning to awaken. Squirrels scratched along their canopy highways, sweet birdsongs were coming into tune, and a clear blue sky above suggested a fine day was ahead.
My focus was on a spot among the rocks where I knew several gravid female Horridus to be resident, and I was waiting patiently for any of them to emerge, pull themselves into a tight coil, and wait on the radiation to elevate the temperature of their gestating bodies. It is amazing how slowly they drag their length out from within their burrows. I have filmed morning egress before, and each video is about twenty to thirty minutes in length, during which the snakes are actively moving only about a fraction of the total time. The action in the films is so slow that I speed them up so as not to get board watching it. Seeing it in real life, in the beauty of the out doors, is much more thrilling.
I was busily writing environmental and climate descriptions into my notebook, when a curious sound caught my attention. On this occasion, I was particularly alerted to certain sounds since this was the morning after the night the sound of many coyotes erupted near camp and caused me to lose some sleep. I started to stand in order to see where the sound was coming from and what was causing it. Twigs snapped in succession, obviously something was walking through the adjacent wood line toward my location.
I finally picked up on a black shape moving from just within a green curtain, pierced here and there by coarse woody debris. My pulse quickened as my initial assessment of the creature was that it might be a big black feral hog, and they usually are not alone. I stood, began to gather my gear so I could leave quietly, and then I realized that it was just a black bear.
My pulse was still elevated, and naturally, I quaked a bit in the animal’s presence. I would have been more worried about a heard of pigs joining me at my seat on the mountain than I was by a bear, as a matter of fact, I welcomed the sight of this bear and the chance to film it. It continued its march until it was in full view out in front of me, and by now I was covertly video recording.
What I initially thought was that the bear would just cross the rock face in front of me, and simply re enter the woods on a bee line path; however, it turned toward me, still unaware of my presence. After only filming it for a few short seconds, I had to break my silence to inform the bear that he was not alone. I called aloud: “here bear,” which is apparently the go to vocabulary for shooing off a bear as I have gathered from locals. It looked up directly at me and I looked directly back, not budging from my spot. I figured it hadn’t quite seen me because it kept coming, swaying its head around, looking.
Not wanting to surprise the bear, I moved out of my cover and stood up as tall as possible, and repeated my taunt: “here bear”. Those that know me know that I do not stand very tall, but I was able to coerce the bear to take a different path. Just to be sure that the bear was not going to return, at least for the moment to allow me to leave, I took a few steps forward, always using my voice to encourage the bear to move along.
As much as I love seeing wild bears, I was not in love with the idea that I was hidden away for one to flush from the snags like a hunted rabbit. After hearing the bear crash off into the depths of the valley, I took my leave of this particular site and went to another location for the day.
June 2012. The light faded, and the smooth transition of diurnal voices to nocturnal conversations reverberated. The cool breeze carried the fresh scent of mint tea on soft currents. The evening hour was quite a pleasure after a lengthy day of counting rattlesnakes in sun, it provided a much needed respite and the opportunity to crack open my thinking book to record thoughts that were otherwise fleeting while I was busy.
I chose to camp in a location just yards away from one of my sampling sites, but it was also in an area frequently trafficked by feral hog and other game. I worried less about bear than I did the hogs; the hogs are problematic, dangerous and bold. So I decided to place my tent-cot in the bed of my truck in order to sleep elevated up off of the ground and away from any trampling hooves. In the last moments of sunlight, I could already hear hogs feeding from within the neck-high grass of an adjacent game clearing. The sweet smell of my tea was likely not helping my desire to avoid a hog invasion of my camp, but it sure was a refreshing brew beneath the slowly appearing stars.
I had scarcely placed my head upon my pillow, when suddenly out of the black of night; coyotes began to laugh from within the forest nearby. It began as quite a domestic sound, but as their conversation continued, their howls intensified to a more sinister tone. They cackled and cried as the pack ran swiftly through the woods along which I was camped. I was unsure if they were tormenting a meal beneath the hunter's moon, or if they were simply engaged in playful canine antics. The sound was thrilling and also slightly chilling.
Predatory noises erupting suddenly in the night was undoubtedly frightening to our Paleolithic ancestors living in the wild Pleistocene, and it likely caused them to keep close to their firelight for security. The desire for light when shrouded in the dark unknown is an emotion that still tugs at the psyche of modern humans as a reflex of our past. I reached outside of my tent and ignited my lamp, and it cast a warm, comforting glow in a perimeter around my camp. I slept soundly with my lamp standing sentry over me, a beacon in the night to stave off the American Jackal.
Surveying rattlesnakes on a den is an entirely different affair than searching for them in the tin fields of the low country; something I learned gradually over time and with each new visit to an assemblage. Quite often I find myself in remote places and on dangerously uneven terrain. I suit up like a medieval knight in full harness, ready for the hastiludium. Leather boots or stout hiking shoes cover my feet, half chaps protect my legs bellow my knees and I always have on a good pair of Carhartt pants or jeans to deter snags and flesh ripping thorns. Poison ivy is abundant in timber rattlesnake habitat and often I spend the whole summer with mild blisters, but as a precaution I almost always wear a shirt with sleeves I can roll down.
Once a denning area is reached, it’s frequently necessary to bushwhack through dense foliage, thorns, and other greenery (especially summer time) in order to explore the many smaller facades and bordering escarpments. Sometimes I have to take to my belly, not unlike the creatures I seek, and slither under low hanging pitch pine branches or through a choking mass of laurel. On many occasions, I find myself battling through the skeletal remains of fallen trees; their dried, lifeless forms make for a frustrating obstacle course as well as a good place to hide snapping jaws. I can only imagine what I must sound like to the quiet and concealed animals living on the adjacent ridges. My shuffling feet through ankle deep leaf litter, a snap and crack that echoes like gunshots as I smash through deadfall, and the occasional vociferous expletive when the trees fight back. Firefly Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians By Mattison, Chris
