As a lot of people from this forum know, we keep track of the snakes we find on our property. Over a month ago we found an adult copperhead under a piece of tin. This was exciting because we found this same snake last Fall in the same spot. My sons checked it almost every day, sometimes more than a couple times! The snake was never bothered except for lifting up the tin. I mentioned that once or twice a week was plenty for checking but even found myself checking almost every time I went by the tin. It was a learning experience to say the least. Sometimes early in the morning the snake was wet and was not usually there during the middle of the day since the tin is completely in the sun with tall grass all around.

Last night I checked it since it had been a couple days. There was a copperhead shed which we could tell was the same snake. It had an open space on the third band back. There are two rodent burrows about two feet apart and only about 4 inches deep. I looked in one hole and there was our 48 inch speckled king that we have found several times . This was the third time this year alone! It came out of the hole and I could see that it looked a little fatter than usual. We decided not to measure since this snake has a very distinct pattern with more like little squiggly lines rather than dots. Against my better judgement I picked the snake up to look at the belly to be sure and it immediately spit up about 3 inches of a copperhead tail and maybe six inches of the back bone. I really didn't want that to happen but at the same time I'm pretty sure where our copperhead friend went! We found the same king about six weeks ago in the same spot. I guess you could say the copperhead stayed too long in one spot but it could have also been a meal if it had moved around a lot.

We also found our 19 inch red milk snake for the fourth time this year. With all our speckled kings I think each time may be the last for this snake too!

Long post but it was a very interesting find for a very hot and dry Summer!