Weird snake behavior

[sagebrush]

Our archery season is in full swing. The other day I went up a canyon and found a small pond I saw on a map. I had packed in a tree stand but there wasn't a tree. So I just sat in some bushes. While I was sitting there I saw a snake in the water swimming around. I thought "Why would a garter snake be swimming around in a pond." So I sat there and watched it. It was about 15" long. Every once in a while it would come over to shore and rest. Then it would go back out and dive down. Sometimes it looked like it was wrestling under water. Then it popped up with a salamander in its mouth. I started looking at it's head. It had a pit viper head. THAT AIN'T A GARTER SNAKE, THAT'S A RATTLESNAKE! Then it got kinda fun watching another predator do it's thing. It would occasionally bring one up that was wiggling and then it would swallow it whole. These were small salamanders that hadn't fully developed. They still had a tail. I ended up seeing only a few does and fawns but I was still rewarded for having been out there. Gary

[dorris]

thats very interesting glad you shared that i didnt ever think of a rattle snake as a water snake .

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Any snake can go aquatic pretty readily.

[Killdeer]

Salamanders keep their tails. Did you mean tadpoles?

Killdeer

[Danny Rowan]

Yep, he has got to mean tadpoles.
Arent salamanders dwellers of the forest floor?

Danny

[Shawn Leonard]

Salamanders do the water thing too! But still tails, would have to agree he meant tadpoles!! Killy is on top of it as usual! Shawn

[donw]

tadpoles are very small...waterdogs maybe?

[STOBBER]

The first rattler that i ever saw was in the water. down at the outer banks islands of NC., I was about 10 yrs.old and walked up on a nice eastern diamondback(5ft.)lying on the bank of a little inland pond, he crawled onto the water and coiled up and started buzzing at me while floating.

[2fletch]

I'm not really that familiar with rattlers but guess that they are similar to copperheads in their behavior. I've seen them take to the water readily when threatened. I have snagged them with a flyrod in the water and they put up a pretty robust fight.

 I also walked up to a peach tree once and was startled by the sight of a 16 inch copperhead laying in a fork at eye level. It looked like he was just sunning.

[Killdeer]

Did you know that bullfrog tadpoles overwinter? Yup, it takes them two years to turn into full-fledged frogs. Bullfrogs and green frogs come from some  really  big tadpoles!

There is a member of the salamander family, a siren, that has no back legs. Hellbenders are salamanders, too.

That's an eft for now.
Killdeer

[sagebrush]

Yup, I think Killy has it right. They had salamander heads but no legs, just tails. I figured they were young salamanders because we get them in the lakes around here. Full grown, they have legs and small tails. I was looking more at the snake than the food, and I really don't know what the snake was eating. Gary