aug 10
HOW THE STUPID GET THEMSELVES MAIMED OR KILLED, part 2:
Continuing the tradition of being the type with little chance of passing genes along, this morning I almost stepped on a Southern Pacific Rattlesnake. I was looking at birds, and that is my excuse. The sun was in my eyes. Well, no, it wasn’t, and I absolutely know better, I grew up here, for chrissakes, and I KNOW THESE THINGS.
The rattlesnake, a youngish one, perhaps 26″ long, and, interestingly, very dark (melanistic), was sunning itself in an obvious location, basically in the middle of the Midwick entrance trail. I failed to notice this, being hyper-attentive to movement in the bushes off of the trail, until I almost stepped on it. “Almost stepped on it” sounds like “almost caught a fish”, but this is different; I really almost stepped on it. The snake had been remarkably patient prior to this, not rattling at me as I came up the trail, but when I was about a foot or so from it, it coiled to strike. I, genius, noticed this, and leapt into the air, twisting myself and lifting my legs as high as I could, as it lunged at me. And missed. Then it moved off the path and curled up in the roots of some poison oak and rattled at me.
After the adrenalin wore off and I could stop saying “Stupid stupid stupid” over and over, I started swearing at myself for not bringing the camera this morning.
P.S. I have started geotagging posts and sightings here.
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August 10th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Geeze, Cathy, you are SOOOO lucky!!!!!!!!!! (To have gotten out of the way, that is.) A rattlesnake bite is just NOT fun.
But, “…not bringing the camera this morning…” does smack of a certain Slate-throated Redstart in AZ and a memorable comment to the effect of, a rare life bird RIGHT THERE and it is too close to take a picture of…
August 11th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Yikes! Glad you’re ok. Interesting how your perception can be so poor but your reflexes so strong. Don’t know how well I’d do: for every time I catch a falling object, there’s another time when I gawk at it, mouth opening by millimeters, and the thing breaks on the floor as my first syllable is echoing in slow motion.
This relates to nothing, but I thought I’d ask it well before the season starts: can anyone recommend a particular feeder or method that will allow birds to eat seed without squirrels getting at it? I tried safflower last year because squirrels weren’t supposed to like it; they acquired a taste for it after three days and scared the birds away permanently. I’m open to anything but leery of feeders that use a physical barrier that can be chewed through, because I’ve seen squirrels chew through almost anything.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Jeez Catherine, don’t get yourself killed in the outback…
Epitaph reads: Bird watcher steps on a rattlesnake while chasing the rare lekora blueback, a bird many thought extinct in the wild. The last sighting was back in 1957, and it hasn’t been seen since. Her last words to the medic who showed up on the seen were: I ALMOST saw it, I could hear it, but it was just around the ridge. WAIT, there it is again. LET ME UP..(struggle, and sadly, gone). The only thing the medic had to say was, “You should have seen that wild look in her eyes when she heard the sound of some bird. I’ve never seen someone get so worked up like that. Weird!”
Be careful, kid!
August 11th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I went back this morning to see if I could find it again to take a photo, but no luck. I did see a coyote in a different part of the canyon.
photo:
http://flickr.com/photos/mydogoscar
and geotagged:
http://mydogoscar.com/birdspot/geotagged-map/
August 11th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Re: squirrel feeder: here are two examples of feeders that don’t work, one with a hole chewed out of the top and one that supposedly shuts when a squirrel’s weight is on the bar… I watched this guy stuff himself then routinely fall alseep in the feeder:
bad squirrel feeders
August 12th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
1. At the risk of sounding like some testosterone fueled obsessed Ozzer: for me ANY DAY you see a snake is a good day, and if you see a Crotalid, well: it’s a GREAT day, even if it is a beefy, pissy and rather dangerous (as Crotalids go) Crotalus oreganus helleri. I love rattlers, all species. I have been known to take birding trips on un-announced detours to see rattlesnake dens much to the classes surprise (and some dismay), which sadly, are rare here in MA, mostly due to anti-snake hysteria and unscrupulous collectors.
2. Catherine was perhaps a bit careless and distracted, but not by any means stupid. STUPID is wading waist deep in a saltwater marsh that has a HUGE professionally erected sign that says in foot high letters: WARNING! ESTUARINE CROCODILES, and then have someone take a photo of the entire situation to preserve for posterity and pull out whenever they want to make a point about how careless and reckless one gets when looking for birds (like the Sumatran Heron in this case.) THAT’S STUPID!
3. There is NO, none, nein, aleph-null, zero bird feeders that are squirrel proof. You can minimize squirrel use with baffles and some basic design features, but it is all for naught and your choices are to live with it OR, like my irascible neighbor down the street, illegally trap and kill them. You can try to trap them and then release them at some distance but (1) many find their way back even after being let out 20+ miles away (I know someone who color marked their tails and did this), and now they are more hungry than ever because of their trials and tribulations, (2) it’s like trying to empty a lake with a teaspoon and not worth the gas and effort.
Mark,
Begrünt die Wälder damit Vögel dort brüten können!
August 12th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
What was amazing was how absolutely calm and pacifist the snake was - it only made a move when it was physically in danger. I’m not afraid of them, but someone who is would benefit to know how close I got with no incident.
Not so amazing was what distracted me from it (no Sumatran Heron) - a family of Hutton’s Vireos (”oh, how cute, little guys, look remarkably like burly Ruby-crowned Kinglets, what a nice morning, starting to get sunburned, wish there was a Phainopepla - waaa? aaaaaack!!!”).
Was it you, Mark, in that estuary??? I learned how to determine the sex of a crocodile last night. Watching Animal Planet. Yeah, I said it. I’ve had it on here in the eves while drawing…
August 12th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Also, cause this in on-topic, I would encourage everyone to take 13 seconds to sign a pre-filled petition from the NWF on the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act:
Petition to Oppose Weakening of the Endangered Species Act
August 12th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Calm and perfect: SEE THIS WEBSITE. Scroll down to photo of CA hikers about to (”surrrrrrprrriiiiize!!”) come upon a rattler on the trail.
http://montereybay.com/creagrus/CArattlers.html
Rattlers at least give you a “heads up”. Of course, if you step on them suddenly, when both of you are distracted, well…you’re ****-ed.
Yeah, it was me in that photo. Just one in a long line of genuinely stupid things I have done while in the heat of looking for a new species. THERE IS A LIST of such incidences, and they are trotted out every time I am about to do the next stupid thing. Loudly, and with threats. Picking up the huge Mojave Rattler with my scope legs to get a better view was just another.
ANIMAL PLANET: look, at least it wasn’t Home Shopping. I watch it too, but not during SHARK WEEK. I have some self respect.
Mark,
Erhöht die Ziegenzucht in allen Familien
August 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I had a bad feeling with that feeder question. I’ll probably keep trying, but it’s discouraging. Wouldn’t be so bad if the birds snuck in every once in a while, but I almost never saw them. It’s a family thing, I guess: Dad caught and released dozens that were eating their way into his house (Cathy’s heard the stories), and then tried killing them without much more luck.
(Very funny moment when we saw a squirrel up on the gutter holding a rectangular something in its little claws. Eventually we made out what it was: a large box of poison, completely empty. The squirrel was fine.)
My grandmother and aunt, visiting from Greece, loved the little guys. No squirrels in Greece, or at least not on the island where we’re from.
Mom and Dad finally seem to be free of them, though. Dad’s theory was that the instinct of wanting to live in a house instead of a tree was genetic, but it only lasted a few generations. Who knows!
August 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Betty, re: Slate-throated Redstart: it would be fantastic to hear the story of the Copperhead in the vines, hint hint…
August 12th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Jesse:
Show your dad this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z2_kKAe9y0
Mark
August 13th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Hah! Good one. The actors either come by those cadences naturally or are terrific with accents.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I don’t remember ever worrying about rattlers in Eaton Canyon, although they must have been around. Su and I did run into one sunning on a trail in AZ. Fortunately she was in the lead and being very careful of her foot placement. The rattler had plenty of time to detect her, rattle and egress before she “sprinted” into range. If I had been ahead (and oblivious as usual), who knows. I have never worried too much about surviving a rattler bite, but birding Trinidad was a bit scary when fer de lance were around. “Fortunately” they are not common any more, but one was reported near the lodge’s swimming spot, while we were there.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
David: Good to hear from you, and welcome to the most entertaining blog on the planet.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Coincidentally, today’s post is dedicated to Su.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Re: squirrel feeders: I did hear about someone once who put their feeder on a pole, then greased the pole every day. They claimed it worked.
But then there’s this:
And we’re not the only species that is afraid of them:
August 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Re: turkey vid. Is that possibly a RED Squirrel? At my feeder, and at other feeders I have seen, Red Squirrels are insane, out of control and really agressive to anything, regardless of size. Gray Squirrels get pushy every once in a while, but nothing compared to a bloody Red.
Mark
August 13th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Certainly acts like a red… awfully hard to tell from the video, tho.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Cathy, I think you should start a new movement titled ‘birds & beer’! I love it.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
The Copperhead Story
One pleasantly cool day this past March, I was assisting with spring pruning in Catherine’s dad’s yard in Texas. I was trimming star jasmine vines (Trachelospermum jasminoides) that had rather messily grown over the edge of their raised bed. The vines become tangled as they grow and exude a sticky sap when cut, so my technique is to snip them at the edge of the bed and roll the cut off parts until there is a big wad. I was wearing cotton gardening gloves. So, snip and roll, snip and roll, etc, when I chanced to look down at the roll in my hand and saw something characteristically patterned pink-and-brown that was definitely NOT a vine. Ooops. Copperhead, a small 12-inch one, head not visible, and my hand was around its middle. I let go.
Catherine’s dad enjoys and keeps records of what critters visit his scant quarter-acre property, and has recorded at least 15 species of snakes there, including multiple individuals of some species. I called for him to come see the snake, “SNAKE!!!!” He ambled over. “Oh, a copperhead! You didn’t HURT him, did you?” The snake was indeed not moving, as it was about 56° that day. Chuck gently nudged the snake, who finally crawled off into the rest of the star jasmine. Chuck turned to me, commenting, “Perhaps you’d better work somewhere else for awhile.” Then, as I moved away, and this was SEVERAL MINUTES after Initial Contact, Chuck asked rather nonchalantly, “Oh, you didn’t get bitten, did you?”
August 13th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Betty:
Great story! Thanks for relating it.
A friend of mine JULIE ZICKEFOSSE, naturalist and artist (wife of Bill Thompson III, editor of Bird Watcher;s Digest) tells a similar story in her latest book LETTERS FROM EDEN. She lives in the Appalachian foothills in Ohio on what sounds like an amazing spread, far away from the cares of the world. If I remember the story correctly, like you, she was trimming some bush. I think it was an annoying multiflora rose. Like you also, she was cutting, but not carefully looking. In her case, she got bit by the Copperhead, right on the thumb. The problem is she had young kids, no one else was home and she was about 20 miles from the docs. Her thumb swelled up to what she described as a dark, bloody knockwurst. So she piled the kids in the car and started to drive. Her thumb all stuck up and swollen. What happened is, because it was ‘the country” everyone she passed thought she was giving the requisite “thumbs up” sign and gave it back (”Heyyyyyyy!!”). She got it taken care of, Of course it was painful like all get out, but fortunately she did not lose the thumb. She did a great drawing of the snake slithering across her front walk which was filled with her children’s chalk drawings.
There is obviously something up with Copperheads and gardening.And unlike other Crotalids, they don’t have a rattle to warn you away.
Mark