Look before you reach!

[Timber]

Numerous courses in the mid Atlantic region were closed for months during quarantine. Wildlife noticed the lack of human activity and became much more active in areas where they were seldom seen before.

I've been hearing about a lot of snake sightings on courses where snakes haven't been seen in years. Most are harmless black snakes but a few copperheads have been reported. In either case, leave them alone and don't kill them as they are good for the habitat. If your course has a tick problem then it also has a rodent problem. Snakes eat the rats, mice etc. which are usually the first meal a tick nymph has in its lifespan.

Look before you reach!
Look AND poke around with a stick if your disc is near fallen logs or deadwood.

 

[ru4por]

Numerous courses in the mid Atlantic region were closed for months during quarantine. Wildlife noticed the lack of human activity and became much more active in areas where they were seldom seen before.

I've been hearing about a lot of snake sightings on courses where snakes haven't been seen in years. Most are harmless black snakes but a few copperheads have been reported. In either case, leave them alone and don't kill them as they are good for the habitat. If your course has a tick problem then it also has a rodent problem. Snakes eat the rats, mice etc. which are usually the first meal a tick nymph has in its lifespan.

Look before you reach!
Look AND poke around with a stick if your disc is near fallen logs or deadwood.

Or rocks. I have seen several snakes taking a sunbath on sun warmed rocks this season.

 

[Armus Patheticus]

Numerous courses in the mid Atlantic region were closed for months during quarantine. Wildlife noticed the lack of human activity and became much more active in areas where they were seldom seen before.

I've been hearing about a lot of snake sightings on courses where snakes haven't been seen in years. Most are harmless black snakes but a few copperheads have been reported. In either case, leave them alone and don't kill them as they are good for the habitat. If your course has a tick problem then it also has a rodent problem. Snakes eat the rats, mice etc. which are usually the first meal a tick nymph has in its lifespan.

Look before you reach!
Look AND poke around with a stick if your disc is near fallen logs or deadwood.

Numerous courses in the mid Atlantic region were closed for months during quarantine. Wildlife noticed the lack of human activity and became much more active in areas where they were seldom seen before.

I've been hearing about a lot of snake sightings on courses where snakes haven't been seen in years. Most are harmless black snakes but a few copperheads have been reported. In either case, leave them alone and don't kill them as they are good for the habitat. If your course has a tick problem then it also has a rodent problem. Snakes eat the rats, mice etc. which are usually the first meal a tick nymph has in its lifespan.

Look before you reach!
Look AND poke around with a stick if your disc is near fallen logs or deadwood.

It's always a good idea to look at what you're doing.

I don't know that the increase in snake sightings has anything to do with quarantines or closed courses. I don't know what the mid-atlantic region is but have noticed an unusual number of snakes this year in Appalachia. This not on disc golf courses but in undeveloped woods and streams. It has been twenty years since snakes were this plentiful and I have no idea why.

There is an enormous discrepancy between reported copperheads and actual copperhead sightings. They are elusive snakes. While it is easy to learn to properly and positively identify them, few people bother, instead calling every snake with a brownish tone a copperhead. Similarly, every snake in the water becomes a "water moccasin" and is assumed to be deadly, even far outside of the range of the actual dangerous cottonmouth.

There are few topics more marred by ignorance and overreaction than snakes. It is not difficult to learn the risks where you live. The massasauga, for example, is the only venemous snake to worry about where Ru4por lives. Like many pit vipers, it is shy, and immediately recognizable as a pit viper. Anybody who spends time outside ought to temper their terror with a tiny taste of education.

The tick larva.

 

[discerdoo]

It's always a good idea to look at what you're doing.

I don't know that the increase in snake sightings has anything to do with quarantines or closed courses. I don't know what the mid-atlantic region is but have noticed an unusual number of snakes this year in Appalachia. This not on disc golf courses but in undeveloped woods and streams. It has been twenty years since snakes were this plentiful and I have no idea why.

There is an enormous discrepancy between reported copperheads and actual copperhead sightings. They are elusive snakes. While it is easy to learn to properly and positively identify them, few people bother, instead calling every snake with a brownish tone a copperhead. Similarly, every snake in the water becomes a "water moccasin" and is assumed to be deadly, even far outside of the range of the actual dangerous cottonmouth.

There are few topics more marred by ignorance and overreaction than snakes. It is not difficult to learn the risks where you live. The massasauga, for example, is the only venemous snake to worry about where Ru4por lives. Like many pit vipers, it is shy, and immediately recognizable as a pit viper. Anybody who spends time outside ought to temper their terror with a tiny taste of education.

The tick larva.

But.... danger noodle!

 

[wolfhaley]

So what he's saying is he's seen oodles if danger noodles this year?

 

[Casey 1988]

Numerous courses in the mid Atlantic region were closed for months during quarantine. Wildlife noticed the lack of human activity and became much more active in areas where they were seldom seen before.

I've been hearing about a lot of snake sightings on courses where snakes haven't been seen in years. Most are harmless black snakes but a few copperheads have been reported. In either case, leave them alone and don't kill them as they are good for the habitat. If your course has a tick problem then it also has a rodent problem. Snakes eat the rats, mice etc. which are usually the first meal a tick nymph has in its lifespan.

Look before you reach!
Look AND poke around with a stick if your disc is near fallen logs or deadwood.

Even well before Corona Virus, My Family had found an Actual Rattle Snake going to its den under a big cement thing that blocked up an old out house hole that was 75% used up while on the near Pierre, Oahe Downstream State Park where Powerhouse Ally is while playing. Also a Bald Eagle at same course nearly dropped a fish on me and dad.

 

[R-Ogre]

I'm glad all we have to worry about are bears.

 

[swhite]

I'm glad all we have to worry about are bears.

And lions...and tigers.

 

[biscoe]

It's always a good idea to look at what you're doing.

I don't know that the increase in snake sightings has anything to do with quarantines or closed courses. I don't know what the mid-atlantic region is but have noticed an unusual number of snakes this year in Appalachia. This not on disc golf courses but in undeveloped woods and streams. It has been twenty years since snakes were this plentiful and I have no idea why.

There is an enormous discrepancy between reported copperheads and actual copperhead sightings. They are elusive snakes. While it is easy to learn to properly and positively identify them, few people bother, instead calling every snake with a brownish tone a copperhead. Similarly, every snake in the water becomes a "water moccasin" and is assumed to be deadly, even far outside of the range of the actual dangerous cottonmouth.

There are few topics more marred by ignorance and overreaction than snakes. It is not difficult to learn the risks where you live. The massasauga, for example, is the only venemous snake to worry about where Ru4por lives. Like many pit vipers, it is shy, and immediately recognizable as a pit viper. Anybody who spends time outside ought to temper their terror with a tiny taste of education.

The tick larva.

Seems to me in my poking about this year that reptile numbers in general are up in central Virginia- I have seen more box turtles this year than ever before as well as a vast number of rat snakes.

No creature gets mis-identified more than the northern watersnake around here. If he's on the rocks sunning he is a copperhead, if he's in the water he's a moccasin (which we don't even have locally).

 

[Armus Patheticus]

Seems to me in my poking about this year that reptile numbers in general are up in central Virginia- I have seen more box turtles this year than ever before as well as a vast number of rat snakes.

No creature gets mis-identified more than the northern watersnake around here. If he's on the rocks sunning he is a copperhead, if he's in the water he's a moccasin (which we don't even have locally).

I have noticed exactly these same things in Virginia, including the misidentification of the northern watersnake. Those are very aggressive snakes, at least compared to copperheads, which does little to encourage calm rationality among indiscriminate snake-smashing goons.

 

[Dan Cooper]

Don't like snakes. Thanks for the post.

 

[DavidSauls]

Better that people misidentify non-venomous snakes as venomous, rather than vice versa. Unless it prompts people to kill them for being venomous.

We have the same experience with water snakes on our property---with at least 3 varieties. Whenever a visitor reports a copperhead or moccasin, I assume they've seen a water snake.

As for snake sightings and the shutdowns, on our rural property I've noticed reptile sightings varying considerably from year to year. I'm not sure why---could be food moving or ebbing food sources, or just snakes randomly hanging out in places we're less likely to see them. I wouldn't put too much stock in a correlation between shutdowns and subsequent sightings.