More Cottonmouths

 

   You may remember that when I went to Florida I saw three Cottonmouths (Water Moccasins). That was probably the highlight of my trip. On this trip, I planned on looking for reptiles whenever I got the chance. I know there are venomous snakes down in North Carolina but it would take a lot of luck to actually see one. 

   Well, boy was lady luck on my side. When we were on Hattaras Island Laurie and I took a random trail that does not get very much use. We walked down the trail about fifty yards and found a small mudhole barely filled with water. Within five minutes we saw a White Ibis and I found a King Rail. Soon after I found the rail, Laurie found a Cottonmouth. We watched it for twenty minutes or so, but it was hot and we were dirty so we left for camp for a cooling shower. 

   Later that night we returned to the mud hole. The temperature was much more comfortable. We hoped to see the Cottonmouth again. We did, it was still there, but it had company. As we walked along the path we found two other tiny puddles with barely any water. We saw a Cottonmouth at each puddle. At that point we were up to three! As we walked back to the original puddle we saw another hanging out with the original snake. And then another! All told, we saw five venomous Cottonmouths that evening. Wanna guess where we would be the following night?

  Monday we went to Okracoke  Island which was okay, but it was really hot, and we did not find any shells. We left for the ferry two hours earlier than planned. We took the 2 pm ferry back to Hattaras. We had an ice cream and went back to camp for another refreshing shower. At this point it was about 5:30 pm. We decided it was time to go check out the snakes again.

   We did not expect a repeat of Sunday night. One snake is a treat, five was unheard of. I went by myself and Laurie went to get some groceries. It was obvious that she would get done before me and would end up walking down the trail to "get me". Sure enough thirty minutes later Laurie came down the trail.

   However, in that thirty minutes I had some spectacular memories. The first and largest mudhole had a couple of snakes in it. The second puddle had two very large Cottonmouths.  However, it was that first puddle that had all of the action. There were three or four snakes in the puddle when a baby Cottonmouth came out of the grass. It went straight for the water and within a minute it grabbed a tadpole. It slithered back to dry land at started turning it and eating it. This was the point when I saw Laurie walking up the trail. By the time she got to me the tadpole was swallowed and the little snake was closing its mouth. 

   As we watched, more snakes got in on the action of eating. At least five tadpoles lost their lives that night. The small snake ate two more. I learned that a snake's appetite is far larger than I previously thought. We watched a couple of snakes eat bigger tadpoles that were days away from being frogs. 

While all of this was going on two of the larger snakes started a courtship ritual known as dance fighting. Basically, the snakes would get as high as they could and try to knock each other over. The female was actually watching this. They would push each other or wrap around each other in an attempt to intimidate the other. This went on for over an hour. It was amazing to watch this display. 

Below are multiple photos. This represents less than ten percent of the photos I took. The ones I chose are because they show different stages of swallowing, fighting, or the inside of their mouth. You could call this a "photo dump" but I selected photos that showed something different than the others. Some of these aren't necessarily the best photos, but they show different parts of the show.