North Georgia road cruising June 28th, 2006 (My B-day!)
Took a little trip to N. Georgia to see if I could find the elusive and beautiful Carolina Pigmy Rattlesnake Sistrurus m. miliarius. This is my first road cruising foray of the year due to a very busy work schedule. After a nice little drive I arrived at my destination.............To my suprise I encountered this beautiful female Carolina Pigmy slowly working her way across a dirt road at 7:30 PM.
I usually don't encounter these until just before sunset and I was luckily able to straddle her before coming to a stop!! This snake appeared to be a 2 year old and was about 10 inches in length. Easily mistaken for a tiny piece of bark on an already debris covered dirt road. Here is an in situ shot of her with the classic "kinked" look. As well as a closer shot of the head.
As dusk turned to dark and the toads began populating the roads I was in high hopes of finding another Pigmy. Luck was not to be with me as I found only a DOR that apparently was hit shortly before I came across it.
I decided to make the trip the following night hoping to find another Carolina Pigmy as my previous night's success was still fresh in my mind. After making the long drive I arrived to a large thunderstorm that was drenching the area. Pigmys are not overly fond of wet roads but I decided to go ahead and ride some dirt roads and see what I might turn up. My first find of the evening was this very shy female Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene c. carolina.
Not much further down the road and I encounterd this male Box Turtle. He was not so shy and let me take a few pictures of more than just his shell
Darkness descended again and my hopes of finding the secretive little Sistrurus were beginning to wane. I was fortunate to save this nice little female Corn Snake from being run over by a passing motorist.......blissfully unaware of the 3 foot serpent stretched out across the blacktop.
Being a sucker for punishment, I decided to continue riding the back roads for another 2 hours with nary a serpent sighting. Persistence was not going to pay off tonight. On the last "country" road I was happy to spot three Skunks that appeared to be happily foraging for food. I don't normally see them in groups nor do I see them with this much white on them. I was able to get out of my car and approach them quite closely for a few shots. Lucky for me they did not feel threatened and I never feared getting sprayed:-) The third Skunk in the picture is barely visible at the top.....
An almost all white skunk.
A normal looking skunk.
And a few more shots of them with the other white one..........
A few nights later I made another trip to this same area and turned up one beautiful orange colored Carolina Pigmy Rattlesnake.
