Collecting Rocks and Snakes.......
01/24/09................I collect rocks, but I also collect many other things.While collecting rocks, I often come upon snakes, so I thought this article may be appropriate to put here. I always loved snakes, and had enjoyed collecting them at various times in my life. I respected them, and had learned to tell the vipers(poisonous) from the constrictors(non-poisonous).
As a little boy I had always been into collecting the different kinds of lizards and hornytoads in our area, and toads and frogs; and had all these different gallon mayonaise and picle jars that we would get from the restarante across the highway at Trankas in Malibu California. We boys had learned from our two older sisters to collect the critters and let them breed and have babies or lay eggs. So we did that to. It was fun. When a cub scout and a boy scout, I got to earn badges and things for learning about the wild things. In the very end of 59, we moved from Mailbu at the Pacific, inland to Newhall-Saugus in northeast LA county. There I learned about all these big Gopher Snakes, and King Snakes in their many varieties, and Red and Black Racers, and Corn Snakes, Milk Snakes, Rat Snakes; there were more kinds of snakes there. And of course my favorites, Rattlesnakes in their many subspieces too. We had Western Diamondbacks, the biggest ones. And Sidewinders that were fun to watch sliding side to side in rapid forward motion. There was little Desert Pygmies living in rocky desert places, and the aggressive smaller Mojave Green said to be the most dangerous and deadly. We loved putting them at first in gallon jars for smaller ones, and later we dug pits about four foot deep into the ground and several feet square to hold them all and allow the room to live and breed, and hunt and kill the mice and rats we threw in to them for food. We also would sometimes have critter fights, and put natural rivals together and watch them fight. The King Snakes could take repeated Rattlesnake bits, until they would finally get the Rattler just behind the head, and then coil around the Rattle crushing the life out of them, and then would take the dead rattler by thehead and slowly begin swallowing it head to tail. Just like the big Anaconda swallowed the people in the movie.
When in the army and stationed in Georgia and the Carolinas, I saw Mountain Pygmy Rattlers, and other types of Rattlers, but most special to the southeast states was the Copperheads and Cottonmouths
As an adult, and soon a parent; I had to teach my kids about snakes, and decided to show them my theory of showing no fear, by catching Rattlers bare handed. My wife didn't like me doing that, and the boys all have a reasonable fear and respect of snakes.
One of the most unusual snakes I ever found, was on our land up near Portland Oregon in the pine needles and rotting vegetation in the grove of trees. It was a Rubber Boa, about three feet long, and soft and rubbery like Nerf balls, and naturally blind. Quite rare, a native of the Pacific Northwest, and protected also. Barely ever ranging far from their birth place, and very solitary in their habits, eating just bugs and worms.
Another unusual snake I found a couple of times in Oregon was a little Glass Snake, only several inches long, and looking like a pinkish or yellowish worm with no apperant eyes, and the smallest mouth, but a real vertebrate snake.
I had a rare opportunity while serving in Vietnam to see more different kinds of venemous snakes then ever before. Seeing King Cobras, Spitting Cobras, Sea Snakes, Bamboo Vipers, and others. Only a few constrictors like the big Burmese Pythons. And a slew of Lizards big and small, and even huge and dangerous in the big Monitors in some extreme areas of the jungles.
Most recently while collecting rocks near home here in Nevada, I spotted a little baby Diamondback about 14 inches long, and decided to catch him in my baseball cap and take him home and we put him in a terrarium. It seemed okay for months, but wasn't eating the mice we gave it. It would hunt them, and stike and kill them, but not eat them. After about six months in my sons bedroom, I was sure the little snake was starting to loose mass and weight, so I decided to take it back to where I found it. I walked up to the top of the hill where I found it, and layed it on the ground, and like lighting it took off and went about three feet, and dissappeared down a hole the size of a half dollar. It was back in its home I was sure.
As a kid I had learned taxidermy and tanning skins, and have always made use of all the animals I collected. In 1978 I started collecting roadkills as a means to have animal parts without having to kill them needlessly, and to keep my skill up with dressing out animals/dissection/butchering, and if need be, a rough skill for emergency surgery or closing of wounds or injuries. The outdoors and all wildlife have been my life..........
As a little boy I had always been into collecting the different kinds of lizards and hornytoads in our area, and toads and frogs; and had all these different gallon mayonaise and picle jars that we would get from the restarante across the highway at Trankas in Malibu California. We boys had learned from our two older sisters to collect the critters and let them breed and have babies or lay eggs. So we did that to. It was fun. When a cub scout and a boy scout, I got to earn badges and things for learning about the wild things. In the very end of 59, we moved from Mailbu at the Pacific, inland to Newhall-Saugus in northeast LA county. There I learned about all these big Gopher Snakes, and King Snakes in their many varieties, and Red and Black Racers, and Corn Snakes, Milk Snakes, Rat Snakes; there were more kinds of snakes there. And of course my favorites, Rattlesnakes in their many subspieces too. We had Western Diamondbacks, the biggest ones. And Sidewinders that were fun to watch sliding side to side in rapid forward motion. There was little Desert Pygmies living in rocky desert places, and the aggressive smaller Mojave Green said to be the most dangerous and deadly. We loved putting them at first in gallon jars for smaller ones, and later we dug pits about four foot deep into the ground and several feet square to hold them all and allow the room to live and breed, and hunt and kill the mice and rats we threw in to them for food. We also would sometimes have critter fights, and put natural rivals together and watch them fight. The King Snakes could take repeated Rattlesnake bits, until they would finally get the Rattler just behind the head, and then coil around the Rattle crushing the life out of them, and then would take the dead rattler by thehead and slowly begin swallowing it head to tail. Just like the big Anaconda swallowed the people in the movie.
When in the army and stationed in Georgia and the Carolinas, I saw Mountain Pygmy Rattlers, and other types of Rattlers, but most special to the southeast states was the Copperheads and Cottonmouths
As an adult, and soon a parent; I had to teach my kids about snakes, and decided to show them my theory of showing no fear, by catching Rattlers bare handed. My wife didn't like me doing that, and the boys all have a reasonable fear and respect of snakes.
One of the most unusual snakes I ever found, was on our land up near Portland Oregon in the pine needles and rotting vegetation in the grove of trees. It was a Rubber Boa, about three feet long, and soft and rubbery like Nerf balls, and naturally blind. Quite rare, a native of the Pacific Northwest, and protected also. Barely ever ranging far from their birth place, and very solitary in their habits, eating just bugs and worms.
Another unusual snake I found a couple of times in Oregon was a little Glass Snake, only several inches long, and looking like a pinkish or yellowish worm with no apperant eyes, and the smallest mouth, but a real vertebrate snake.
I had a rare opportunity while serving in Vietnam to see more different kinds of venemous snakes then ever before. Seeing King Cobras, Spitting Cobras, Sea Snakes, Bamboo Vipers, and others. Only a few constrictors like the big Burmese Pythons. And a slew of Lizards big and small, and even huge and dangerous in the big Monitors in some extreme areas of the jungles.
Most recently while collecting rocks near home here in Nevada, I spotted a little baby Diamondback about 14 inches long, and decided to catch him in my baseball cap and take him home and we put him in a terrarium. It seemed okay for months, but wasn't eating the mice we gave it. It would hunt them, and stike and kill them, but not eat them. After about six months in my sons bedroom, I was sure the little snake was starting to loose mass and weight, so I decided to take it back to where I found it. I walked up to the top of the hill where I found it, and layed it on the ground, and like lighting it took off and went about three feet, and dissappeared down a hole the size of a half dollar. It was back in its home I was sure.
As a kid I had learned taxidermy and tanning skins, and have always made use of all the animals I collected. In 1978 I started collecting roadkills as a means to have animal parts without having to kill them needlessly, and to keep my skill up with dressing out animals/dissection/butchering, and if need be, a rough skill for emergency surgery or closing of wounds or injuries. The outdoors and all wildlife have been my life..........
