One Snake, Two Snake, Bull Snake...

While walking on the edge of a dirt country road the other day (the day of the two rainbows) I almost stepped on a snake. I don't know why I didn't see it until it was six inches away from me.  It might have been because I was more focused on watching the storm clouds to the south of me.  I knew that  if they were heading my way I wouldn't have time to finish my walk before the rain started. Funny thing, when I first saw the snake I wasn't afraid of it since it did not look right. It lay as straight as a line and looked flattened and at first I thought it was dead. Then a black, pencil graphic thin, forked tongue flicked out of it's mouth and I knew it was alive.

I stood there looking down at,  more confused than frightened, wondering why it wasn't moving. If it had been a rattlesnake it would have been coiled up like a garden hose with it's head up and hissing at me.   It  was not doing that so I decided it must be a young bull snake. I found it interesting that the body markings were just the same a rattlesnake, no wonder bull snakes were often mistaken for rattlers. My eyes traveled down the body to the tail and it took my brain a few moments to absorb what I was seeing. The tail ended in rattlesnake buttons. I was standing six inches away from a live rattlesnake. A live rattle snake that had not move a muscle but its tongue since I first walked up to it. I took a step backwards, I took another step backwards and then about three steps to the side. I walked past the snake and without taking my eyes off of it made a big detour around it.  I keep watching it until I had my head turn to the right as far as it could rotate.

As I walked away I thought about what had just happened. Why didn't the snake attack me? Then I thought about the time of day, early morning, and realized that the snake was still waiting for the sun to warm it up. The snake looked flattened because it was pushing its body into the ground trying to get as much of its skin exposed to the sun as possible.  It did not curl up and try to strike me because its body was still too cold to react with any semblance of speed.  It did the only thing it could when it sensed danger, it played dead.  If the temperature had been warmer the snake would not have been on the road at all.