HAPPY BIRTHDAY. HERE'S YOUR RATTLESNAKE

by Whit Gibbons

October 10, 2010

My son and I had birthdays last week and I was reminded of a column I wrote about a long-ago birthday present. It went something like this:

Happy Birthday, here's your rattlesnake. Actually here are your 28 rattlesnakes, plus a handful of other kinds of snakes for good luck. Sound like a good time or what? That's what we gave our son, Mike, for his birthday the year he graduated from the University of Alabama. An ecology field trip. The present was my idea, and I got to deliver it. (His mother actually had in mind a gift in wrapping paper and ribbons.)

Presentation day was a Sunday in October at a national wildlife refuge in Florida. Terry Farrell and Peter May of Stetson University let us go with them to their pigmy rattlesnake study site. These two ecologists have collected more pigmy rattlesnakes than anyone else in the world. We began the hunt at a gravel parking lot alongside a swamp. As we drove up, one of the students was taking measurements on a rattlesnake that had been crawling across the parking lot as she got out of the car. I wondered what it would be like when we got to the study site.

We walked down a dike separating two lakes toward a hammock where most of the snakes are found. A hammock is a wooded area of palmettos, cypress, and bay magnolia trees surrounded by open wetlands. A variety of wildlife find refuge in hammocks. As we walked along, Terry found a baby pigmy rattler coiled on the dike. Mike found another, coiled in the grass a few feet away. I relaxed. Mike had found a snake. He would not be disappointed. The pigmy rattlers are so well camouflaged that many people do not find one on their first trip. On a previous trip with Peter and Terry, I had watched Tony Mills stare at the ground while someone pointed to a pigmy rattlesnake that neither of us could see at first. It blended perfectly with the groundcover of dead twigs and pine cones.

These smallest of venomous snakes in North America are shy and retiring when it comes to humans. They prefer not to be seen or heard. They do have a tiny set of rattles that sound like an insect buzzing if they get mad and you get close enough. And their venom is potent, drop for drop. But because of their small size (seldom over 18 inches) they are not as dangerous as cottonmouths or diamondback rattlers.

Mike was in tune with his environment that day and spotted an adult pigmy rattler on the dike. I began to wonder how many I had stepped on. Then came the really fun part, entering the hammock where most of the snakes lived. A walking trail leads through the hammock but central Florida had recently been favored with torrential rains. The trail was a foot deep in water.

Some snakes seek refuge on higher ground or vegetation during floods. And the little rattlers were on exposed areas of dry ground as well as on palmetto fronds and in low-lying bushes. Mike found one more than six feet above the water in a wax myrtle tree. This made me think about the wisdom of pushing vegetation aside while charging through the woods off the trail. We stayed approximately three hours and found 28 pigmy rattlesnakes. I say "we" found them because I was there. Mike found five, Peter found six, Terry found seven, the students found the rest, and I found none. But I did catch a green snake no one else saw. We also found two garter snakes, four ribbon snakes, a water snake, and four box turtles.

Hunting for rattlesnakes, pigmy or otherwise, isn't everyone's idea of a good time. But an ecology field trip need not include snake hunting. Tailored to the recipient's age and interests, it would make a fun and memorable birthday present. Why not plan one for someone in your family?

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