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By Sue Certain
It is spring. There are new flowers, new leaves on the trees, new grass, and…snakes in the grass. This is a time when snakes such as copperheads start to get active.
Personally, I have never seen a copperhead in North Buckhead in twenty years, although Gordon tells me that our late cat Tabby once found one in the back yard (and lived). But a number of neighbors have seen these reddish-brown banded snakes and have shared their stories.
Robert Lawter reports: "My wife and I got out of the car last Friday night (this was last October) with our 15-month-old daughter and were startled when we found a three-foot-long copperhead snake making his way across the path towards the steps to our porch. Apparently, the high water over the last few weeks had driven him to higher ground. I don't mind the birds, fox or even the beavers that we typically see in the back yard along Nancy Creek but this visitor was unwelcome. Especially for other parents and those with pets, remind them to be cautious when out in the yard near high grass and ivy."
Nancy Riggs, of Wieuca Road, was watching her friends' two dogs, as well as her own two dogs, in the back yard. One dog got out of the pool, limping and
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shaky. The dog's foot eventually became very swollen, and she was in pain. It turned out to be a copperhead bite. Fortunately, the dog survived the bite and regained good health. Nancy never even saw the snake or heard a yelp.
Christopher Reed and James Harper report finding a copperhead in front of their house on Old Ivy Road. "James immediately experienced many of the symptoms…including weakness, giddiness, breathing difficulty, an increased pulse, stupor, sweating and headache, and he wasn't even bitten. Imagine if the snake had been alive!….Hmmm…I will think twice, and perhaps five or six times when I go down by our pond again and stick my hands in the garden."
Christopher has found the following information about the copperhead on the Internet at animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu:
The Southern Copperhead inhabits the Florida panhandle north to Southern Delaware and west to SE Missouri, SE Oklahoma, and E Texas. Copperheads prefer terrestrial to semi-aquatic habitats, which include hillsides and various wetlands. They have also been known to occupy abandoned and rotting slab or sawdust piles. Average length of adult copperheads is 30 inches. They have an unmarked copper-colored head, and reddish-brown, coppery bodies with chestnut brown crossbands. Copperheads are thick-bodied.
Young copperheads are seven to ten inches long and grayer in color than adults. They have a sulfur yellow-tipped tail, which fades with age and is lost by age three or four.
This is a social snake, which may overwinter in a communal den with other copperheads or other species of snake. Males are aggressive during the spring and autumn mating seasons. They have been seen voluntarily entering water and swimming on numerous occasions. The copperhead primarily eats mice, small birds, lizards, small snakes, amphibians and insects.
The copperhead has fangs, with venom. Newborns have venom just as toxic as that of adults. The copperhead is the cause of many snakebites yearly but they are rarely fatal. Bites commonly result from accidentally stepping on or touching the snake, which tends to be well camouflaged with its surroundings.
It is important to remember that most snakes are harmless, and even the copperhead bite is rarely fatal. Most of the time, we do not encounter snakes in our community. However, it is good to be aware of what copperheads look like and take simple precautions.
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