Close call

On Sunday little o and I went for a walk in the woods behind the neighborhood. I love walking in the woods. There is a trail for mountain biking and streams and a lot of cliffs with steep drops. I don't normally venture off the trail but I did on Sunday because I had hoped we'd find some morels on our outing.

No morels were found, but we did encounter a bunch of wild life starting with a little toad. Right off the trail we saw an eastern box turtle. I took a picture with my phone but kept my distance. I don't mess with wildlife.

Otto paid no attention to him, he probably thought the turtle was a rock


We continued walking and started to go off the trail. While we were walking along the edge of a hill we walked until we got to the end and then went right. I was scanning the bottoms of the trees and checking out all the dead ones around, not really watching what was directly under my feet. Otto stopped abruptly and started pulling to the right. Just then I notice a snake laying out in the open less than a foot from where I was standing. My heart jumped because I didn't expect him to be there. When I was growing up on the Eastern Shore snakes were an everyday occurance. We had one big black snake that lived in the attic and would crawl out of the house to sun himself on the fence post in the summers. He was a welcome guest.

I was taught when I was younger how to identify good snakes and bad snakes. Bad=diamond shaped head, colored cat like eyes. Good=round heads and black eyes.

I started slowly moving forward to get away from it and within 4 feet I was at the edge of a drop. To the left was another drop, back in his direction was the trail, and to the right was a very big and very steep dirt pile. It was the only way we could go. I had to get on my hands and knees to crawl up this thing because it was so steep and I didn't want to fall. We made it back to the trail and our walk was very much OVER for the day.



When I got home I started researching snakes in Maryland because I wanted to know what I had just met. I initially thought he was a hognose but the eyes did not match the description. This snake had orange eyes. I found my match this morning. It was a Northern Copperhead. Good thing I didn't run. If Otto hadn't distracted me I never would have seen the poisonous snake that I almost stepped on. He would have bitten me for sure and it's unlikely that I'd be dead but I'd definitely be in a lot of pain and not at work today.

Lesson learned, stay on the trail.

Here is a Northern Copperhead: