A week of Rattlercam
Aug. 9th, 2025 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIn the mountains of PA, where I live, the timber rattlesnakes mate in late summer, kind of mid-July through early September. Depends a bit on the weather and stuff, but basically late summer. 'Tis the season, as it were.
Also, no snakes were harmed in the making of this post. The snakes are fine.
Brother the elder sent me a text mid-week stating that a rattlesnake had showed up outside his front door. (He lives up the road from me, a two minute walk.) Okay, fine, that happens sometimes.
Then he sent me a picture with the text "Now there are two!"
Here's the picture:
If you're not up on snake behavior, this is a thing that boy snakes do when they are competing for a girl snake. Scientists call it "dominance dancing" but I think of it more like sparring. They don't bite each other. They're not trying to HURT each other. This is sort of amanliness, er, snake-liness contest, feats of strength sort of a thing.
While this is a still shot, there is indeed video coming my way except I don't have it yet because my brother is not a fast video-editor. But you can imagine it as being like... wrestling for snakes. They kind of stand up and try to wrap round the other snake and press him to the ground. Snake wrestling, kinda. They roll around on the ground. It goes on for... a while. An hour or so.
Now when they're doing that snake wrestling thing, there's a girl snake somewhere nearby. This isn't a thing that boy snakes do for no reason. They do it, like, right near the girl snake. She's not watching, but she's close by. So when you see this, there is another snake in the vicinity that you don't see. Just helpful to know that. In this instance, the girl snake is located to the left of the picture, underneath a woodpile that is just out of frame.
After ritual combat has ended and the loser snake has left, the victorious snake goes over to hang out with the nearby girl snake. She's allowed to tell him to get lost, but if she is impressed with his... feats of strength or overall buffness or whatever, she can hook up with him.
So, if the girl snake is on board, then the girl snake and the boy snake hang out for a bit while presumably pursuing the creation of the next generation of snakes. They don't do anything but strike at high speed, so you have plenty of time for couples pics. (I did not get pictures of actual snake sex.) In this instance, they hung out together at the woodpile for just about a week. Brother-the-elder (working from home) posted daily updates about them until they finally departed. We were all kind of surprised that they... hung out together for that long. I'd honestly expected some sort of wham, bam, thank you ma'am affair but it wasn't like that. They hung out together for a week.
Here is the "victorious" boy snake from the sparring match and the girl snake that had been hiding underneath the woodpile during the sparring match.
I'd like to point out that these are not super duper active and busy snakes. They are 100% about conserving energy and Not Moving Very Much. All those people who are like "I saw a timber rattler this one time and he came at me, bro!!" -- those people are full of shit. They just don't do that.
Look. I called Trys when I was heading out to feed the horses at around 7:30 AM to let her know that the snakes were still at the woodpile. (Her boy age 12 is kinda nerdy and likes snakes and was super excited to see them.) She was like, "Do I have time to stop at the Dunkin?" I was "No hurry. Bring me a coffee."
By the time she got her boy up and dressed and had stopped at Dunkin and finally arrived at the aforementioned woodpile (I met her there) to look at the snakes, it was 8:45 AM. The snakes had not moved two feet. They were still warming up after the cool night. Mordecai looked at the snakes. He was, "Are they dead?" I was, "Nope, they just don't move very much." We stood there, about five feet away from them, and they just lay there, still, not rattling. One of them, the female, adjusted her head/neck area about half an inch. Such excitement.
I stopped back over around lunchtime. They'd moved to be slightly less "in the sun" and were partially shaded. Maybe a foot of movement?
And at 2 in the afternoon, when brother the younger showed up, the snakes were in the now-shaded part of the woodpile (the sun had moved but they had not) and still not moving.
These snakes hang out while remaining almost completely motionless. That is their jam. You can get pretty close to look at them and if you're non-threateningly six feet away, they don't rattle or anything. They may bask all stretched out or coiled like a cinnamon roll, but they are generally not moving in any kind of interesting way. Observing unstressed timber rattlers is as exciting as watching paint dry.
The sunlight and shadows move faster than these snakes. If you don't HARASS them, they just hang out not moving very much.
I have more pictures, but they look about the same. Snakes, not moving very much.
Also, no snakes were harmed in the making of this post. The snakes are fine.
Brother the elder sent me a text mid-week stating that a rattlesnake had showed up outside his front door. (He lives up the road from me, a two minute walk.) Okay, fine, that happens sometimes.
Then he sent me a picture with the text "Now there are two!"
Here's the picture:
If you're not up on snake behavior, this is a thing that boy snakes do when they are competing for a girl snake. Scientists call it "dominance dancing" but I think of it more like sparring. They don't bite each other. They're not trying to HURT each other. This is sort of a
While this is a still shot, there is indeed video coming my way except I don't have it yet because my brother is not a fast video-editor. But you can imagine it as being like... wrestling for snakes. They kind of stand up and try to wrap round the other snake and press him to the ground. Snake wrestling, kinda. They roll around on the ground. It goes on for... a while. An hour or so.
Now when they're doing that snake wrestling thing, there's a girl snake somewhere nearby. This isn't a thing that boy snakes do for no reason. They do it, like, right near the girl snake. She's not watching, but she's close by. So when you see this, there is another snake in the vicinity that you don't see. Just helpful to know that. In this instance, the girl snake is located to the left of the picture, underneath a woodpile that is just out of frame.
After ritual combat has ended and the loser snake has left, the victorious snake goes over to hang out with the nearby girl snake. She's allowed to tell him to get lost, but if she is impressed with his... feats of strength or overall buffness or whatever, she can hook up with him.
So, if the girl snake is on board, then the girl snake and the boy snake hang out for a bit while presumably pursuing the creation of the next generation of snakes. They don't do anything but strike at high speed, so you have plenty of time for couples pics. (I did not get pictures of actual snake sex.) In this instance, they hung out together at the woodpile for just about a week. Brother-the-elder (working from home) posted daily updates about them until they finally departed. We were all kind of surprised that they... hung out together for that long. I'd honestly expected some sort of wham, bam, thank you ma'am affair but it wasn't like that. They hung out together for a week.
Here is the "victorious" boy snake from the sparring match and the girl snake that had been hiding underneath the woodpile during the sparring match.
I'd like to point out that these are not super duper active and busy snakes. They are 100% about conserving energy and Not Moving Very Much. All those people who are like "I saw a timber rattler this one time and he came at me, bro!!" -- those people are full of shit. They just don't do that.
Look. I called Trys when I was heading out to feed the horses at around 7:30 AM to let her know that the snakes were still at the woodpile. (Her boy age 12 is kinda nerdy and likes snakes and was super excited to see them.) She was like, "Do I have time to stop at the Dunkin?" I was "No hurry. Bring me a coffee."
By the time she got her boy up and dressed and had stopped at Dunkin and finally arrived at the aforementioned woodpile (I met her there) to look at the snakes, it was 8:45 AM. The snakes had not moved two feet. They were still warming up after the cool night. Mordecai looked at the snakes. He was, "Are they dead?" I was, "Nope, they just don't move very much." We stood there, about five feet away from them, and they just lay there, still, not rattling. One of them, the female, adjusted her head/neck area about half an inch. Such excitement.
I stopped back over around lunchtime. They'd moved to be slightly less "in the sun" and were partially shaded. Maybe a foot of movement?
And at 2 in the afternoon, when brother the younger showed up, the snakes were in the now-shaded part of the woodpile (the sun had moved but they had not) and still not moving.
These snakes hang out while remaining almost completely motionless. That is their jam. You can get pretty close to look at them and if you're non-threateningly six feet away, they don't rattle or anything. They may bask all stretched out or coiled like a cinnamon roll, but they are generally not moving in any kind of interesting way. Observing unstressed timber rattlers is as exciting as watching paint dry.
The sunlight and shadows move faster than these snakes. If you don't HARASS them, they just hang out not moving very much.
I have more pictures, but they look about the same. Snakes, not moving very much.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-09 10:40 pm (UTC)Still, no thanks. :D
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Date: 2025-08-10 02:35 am (UTC)Here, the girl snake was hiding underneath the woodpile that is located just out of the frame of the first picture.
The second and third pictures show the "winner" boy snake from picture 1 with the (previously hidden) girl snake at that same woodpile. (Loser boy snake slunk off to elsewhere and is no longer "around".)
All of these pictures were taken about 20 feet outside the entrance to the lodge, where Brother the Elder is living.
The confusion came from the fact that I tend to refer to both "my house" (which I personally own) and "the family property" (I own 27% of the shares of the company that owns the family property) as "my place". I've edited for clarity, sorry to be so confusing!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-10 05:41 am (UTC)Rattlesnakes delight me, from a safe and respectful distance. (Even if they are a bit like watching paint dry. I'll watch anyway.)
The prairie rattlesnakes we have here have both very chill mode and "FUCK YOU" mode, and it's a bit of a toss up which you'll get. About 80% of the ones I've encountered have been the chill kind (one so chill I very nearly stepped directly on it, because I didn't see it, and it didn't move or rattle. Luckily Alex saw it.) The other 20% will start rattling and posturing from ten yards.