But I don't know if I have ever seen one here.Sherry it is good to see you On this forum.I have been slaving away in my Butterfly Garden and planted Seven young Sassafras last week for thicket shrubs for the Spicebush swallowtails.I followed your thread on the swallowtail photo and was very Amazed at the Lepo man's depth of Taxon storage.Anyway abt snakes I Wish you had been with me with your photo skill back when I was keeping Rat dorms in my pool shed and had a great encounter with one of the local Rattlesnakes.Since I live so deep down in South Al and also between two Cypress swamps we call our rattlers Canebrakes because they look a little Different from more upland Timber rattlers to us being very pinkish Gray And they have russet dorsal stripes.They are beautiful snakes and this was A big one.This is what happened.I already knew that I had a rat loose and That it had been running a line between the swamp and the firewood stack Beside the pool shed.It was a big brown and white spotted male and was The first thing That caught my eye when I stepped off the front deck of My house and started down the west wall.Since the rat was lying on its Back with its feet sticking up I scanned the ground around it as I walked Much slower and quickly spotted the snake which was abt two feet away From the rat.It was stretched out but still and seemed to have been approaching the rat when it saw me step off the deck and it had "frozen". I went slowly on the scene and stopped abt ten feet away and sat down On the grass very slowly and did not move.After looking me over by turning It's head in my direction and taking a few tongue flicks in less than five Minutes it decided not to concern itself and moved to the rat,located its Head and swallowed it down.It then departed in the direction of the swamp. I know that these big rattlers are dangerous.But I do not think they are agressive.I see them sometimes at a distance crossing the road taking a calm straight track with the rattle carefully held aloft.I am looking forward To the warm weather coming and the snakes that live around here will be Out and abt again. DD

Awesome! Very nice, Mike. I love that corn snake and mole kingsnake. And as always, your photography is spectacular. Especially that copperhead shot. That oughta be in a field guide. I'm driving from the Smokies to Wilmington in late June. If you know of any places that you could point me to (by email of course), I would definitely love to hear them. Or if you know of anyone that I could contact, let me know. I'm hoping to have a great two week herping adventure. Once again, awesome pictures, and thanks for posting. Definitely worth the wait.

Very interesting! I have never seen photos of a racer eating another snake. They'll eat most anything - the babies I had ate big, black field crickets - chased them all over the place. Nice pics - joe Here is a link that might be useful: Species account of the Racer (Coluber constrictor)

That was so kind of you. I would have done the same as you, except now learning to free the body before the head! Thank you!! I had a sad experience last week when my sweet dog, Pointer discovered a nest of bunnies and came to me with one in her mouth. I screamed at her to drop it which she finally did. Poor little bunny, just a baby. It was still moving so I hoped it would be ok. I watched it for an hour and I could see it kept trying to stand up but would just lay there. I didn't know what to do. I thought it might be frightened so I moved it back to the gardenia bush where the dog got it. It cried and I was so upset. I checked it the next day and it had died. I couldn't see any wound but it was wet from the dogs mouth so I don't know if she punctured its body. It's been haunting me ever since. We have so many rabbits on our property that now I just walk her and refuse to let her out in the yard. I don't want this to happen again. Jane