King of the Swamp - June, 11th 2006
My good friend Bart and I decided that we would do a rocket run down to S. Georgia. Our goal was to simply find a snake or two and satisfy that urge to GET OUTSIDE that the two of us frequently have. We had about a 5-6 hour drive ahead of us so we got up early that morning to try and get to our "spots" before the temperatures rose too much. Unfortunately for us this was to be one of those hot Georgia days. We hit a few nice tin spots but had no luck as the temps quickly rose into the high 90's. The sun was blistering hot and we briefly thought about calling it a day. We decided, however, to try looking under some bridges in hopes of finding something in that cooler microhabitat. Amazingly at our first bridge.........yes I left my camera in the car...........was a nice adult Canebrake Rattlesnake coiled up peacefully on the cool concrecte footer of the bridge. Bart and I both were ecstatic at our find! Neither of us had hooks or our cameras so Bart ran back to the car as I kept a watchful eye on the Rattlesnake. As luck would have it the big snake became aware of me and quickly darted into a pile of granite that pretty much surrounded the entire base of the bridge. Despite our best efforts we were unable to entice the snake to show himself again. A great photo op was missed! Oh well, off to the next bridge to try our luck. This time there was no Rattlesnake patiently waiting for us to arrive but rather we noticed the blackwater creek passing under looked ideal for walking.
Bart and I were hoping to find that feared denizen of southern swamps........the Cottonmouth. We spent almost a half hour patiently wading through slow moving water and crunching our way over oaks leaves that littered the sun dappled ground. We looked in every cypress knee and every log jam hoping to find a snake lying out. The heat was almost unbearable and we had dedided to turn back soon when Bart just calmly said, "Here he is." I looked intently at the spot he was pointing at but I still did not see a thing. I moved a few feet over to try and gain a different perspective and then I spotted what looked like a car tire sticking up out of the water. As Cottonmouths often do during very hot weather this snake had almost all of its body submerged and pressed up against a log jam with only one small section of it's body sticking out of the water. It was a large Cottonmouth and we spooked it from it's original postion so we moved it and tried to capture a few shots of this majestic snake. The first picture is just above the spot where it was wedged and hidden in the water so well. This was not the largest Cottnmouth we have ever found but it was heavy bodied and a robust 4+ feet long.
Bart and Mardi both showing off this impressive beast.
After a few pictures we said farewell to this majestic denizen of the swamp and watched him peacefully glide away.
Later on that day we stopped to flip some tin and found this bicycle protruding from this tree.
As the sun set we decided to ride a few roads in hopes of finding some more herps before our long drive back home. Although not the most productive of nights were certainly not disappointed. Our first find of the evening was this pretty little Rough Green Snake.
A few minutes later we came across this "Oketee" looking Corn Snake.
And this Cottonmouth trying to find some dinner on the road.
Things slowed down and we did not see any more live snakes that night. It had been a great day but we were tired and worn out and we made our journey home.
