Have any of you seen this? I've seen it reported for 3-4 years now. I can't think of one person I know that has seen it.

http://m.chron.com/news/article/Copperhead-engage-in-nightly-summertime-feeding-8399696.php?cmpid=facebook-mobile

Quote:

---

Copperhead snakes engage in nightly summertime feeding congregation

"What did you hear?"
Huh?
"What were the sounds you could hear?"
Cicadas - "locusts" to most Texans. The woods vibrated with the sound of male cicadas thrumming their mating calls.
"There's your answer," Gluesenkamp said. "You were likely seeing copperheads involved in a feeding aggregation."



Turns out, herpetologists and others studying snakes have only recently begun to document what appears to be a common, if previously little noted or studied, behavioral phenomenon among copperheads. It's pretty amazing. And understanding what happens at night this time of year in yards and around camps and hunting lease trailers and other areas in copperhead range could go a long way toward helping folks avoid potentially painful and disconcerting encounters.

"Until you see it, you won't believe it," said Kristofer Swanson, whose Katy Snakes business involves removal of unwanted snakes as well as consulting and safety training inevitably focused on venomous snakes.

---

Never heard r seen this and I live in a heavily occupied copperhead area.

Maybe I'll take a look and see.

Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess

There was a similar article posted last year. It said the snakes would frequent the bottom of trees to eat the cicadas as they climbed up to hatch. I don't remember anything about it saying that the snakes climbed up in the trees.

Can't speak to this specifically. I encountered one in a large bush, small tree in College Station during big event one year. Trimming it back from the house and get that funny feeling. I look to my left and it's about shoulder high within an arms length.

Scared the hell out of me.

I've seen them a couple feet off the ground in scrub oak several times. I was crawling around doing vegetation work in thick brush years ago. Looked up and I was eye to eye with one about 6 inches from my face. I gave him his space and he didn't give me a second thought.
So it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them in trees.

Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess

OverSeas AG said:

---

FSGuide said:

---

There was a similar article posted last year. It said the snakes would frequent the bottom of trees to eat the cicadas as they climbed up to hatch. I don't remember anything about it saying that the snakes climbed up in the trees.

---

i think that is what i was remembering. It was that they gather together to eat, not climb trees necessarily. But i have not seen a gathering of them myself.

---

This... copperheads will climb but only after prey and when it's in abundance. Copperheads best advantage is it's camouflage. Climbing a tree makes the snake vulnerable and they tend to avoid it unless it's timed with a cicada hatch or opportunity to eat.

Most of the time, in texas, your climbing snakes are limited to Rat snakes.

I've never seen a copperhead climb. I've seen pictures of them on oaks, but they were always very close to the bottom of the trunk and wedged between the bark where they were well camouflaged, but always within a foot or two at most of the ground.

A woman in my neighborhood posted on our facebook page a picture of a snake up in a purple martin nest on her house and claimed it was a copperhead. Picture was way too fuzzy, I just assumed it was a small rat snake because that would be something a rat snake would do.

I've never seen one in a tree, but I did see one at the base of a window pane about four feet of the ground. There are frequently cicada sheds on the window screens at our camp....I assumed that is why he got adventurous.

On a side note, I will be mowing about 3 acres around several oaks Monday evening. Over/under on number of copperheads I come across is 6.

I haven't encountered this specifically with cicadas, but copperheads can frequently be found off the ground. I've typically seen younger animals do this and they appear to be caudal luring. Last year in a job site a found one 7ft up in some briars along a pecan.

I'll take the under.

Always wondered 12f, do you work in a herp related industry or is it just a passion of yours?

Nothing like being up a ladder, in a thick clump of bushes, and looking down to see a copper head head into the same clump of bushes...

Might have jumped to the clear grass and knocked a stick around in the bushes before getting the ladder out...

Buddy got tagged by one last year. They ended up killing 27 within the next week in just their front yard.

What does he have in his front yard? A few large old Oak trees.

schmellba99 said:

---

I've never seen a copperhead climb.

---

Several years ago, we lived in Manvel. Our utility room had a full length glass storm door. We were having tree frogs climb up the glass. My wife went out through the garage but was going to come back in through the utility room until she saw a snake hanging on the drip edge at the top of the door. It was a copperhead obviously dining on the frogs. She knocked it down but it crawled through a crack in the step. She couldn't leave it there so trying squirting wasp spray into the crack. That didn't work so poured in boiling water. It came out and she beat it to death with a shovel and hoe. I cowered in the house, crying like a baby, while she handled the snake. (Just kidding) When I got home, I reminded her about the .22 with snake shot just inside the door of the utility room.

We moved to the Hill Country two years ago. She has dispatched her first rattlesnake with her shovel and hoe. She seems ok confronting snakes (the copperhead in Manvel wasn't her only) but she freaks out regarding scorpions that we didn't have there.

Pignorant said:

---

This is the worst possible thread to read while hog hunting in a tree stand... which is what I'm currently doing right now.

---

Toasty!

Spooked another copperhead mowing beside the house. It chose to escape towards the backyard where my dogs were barking at me, so I had to jump off the mower and head it off into the tall weeds on the far side of our side lot fence.

Had some rain a week ago and a heavy dew Saturday morning, so I finally got around to burning some old brush piles of trees that had died just north of my house.

Upon re-piling that afternoon, I found a well-done what I assume was a copperhead based on head shape and body size (scales looked right but had lost all color). I decided to leave it on top of the coals to take it to extra-crispy level.

Bumper crop of copperheads out, be safe and watch where you put your feet down.

Damn! Wonder how many of those little a-holes could've bitten me but didn't. Never thought they did that!

After careful study I'm only 1 for 3.

How many soldiers am I supposed to see?

3 for 3 but I had to zoom in a bit.

That bottom picture is awesome

"What are you going to do? Throw me into the greenbriar? Or to the copperheads? Or into the greenbriar with copperheads crawling in it, so when you fall in you get poked by thorns and the copperheads bite you?" [/Homer Simpson]

I know for a fact they climb trees because I had one fall on my head once. Scared the crap out of me. Luckily, it was just as shocked as I was. I instantly grabbed it and threw it hard to the ground and ran back about 15 feet.

But I've never seen them congregate.

I'm with Rex in that I know for fact they climb trees because I had one drop out of a tree about 2 feet in front of me. I very quickly gave it about another 20 feet.