Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yesterday I was leaving for lunch, and I saw a hawk on a powerline outside my office with a SNAKE in it's talons!!!

It is warm for Jan here but it's still FREEZING at night and only in the 30's & 40's during the day!!

Anyone else ever seen this or know how that bird found a snake in Jan?

D

Being a resident formally of Mo. for 40 years, yes a have witnessed several snakes and raptores doing what you described. One very in particular incidence was a very warm 2 day period in Jan of about 1976 where i was visiting a bud that lived in Holt Mo. Some place not to far on a back road we had pin pointed a timber den sight several years before and just for the heck of it went there to investigate if there would be any chance at all of the snakes taking advantage of the warm weather. They were ! While we saw no juveniles, there were around 7-8 adults basking on the rock ledges.
The next docu. time was the first year I moved here outside of Emporia, KS. 3 years ago we had some very warm weather here in Jan. and on a road where the water treatment center is located for my small township, we have a bleed over ( what i call a canal ) that runs opposit the road. There was a swoop of a redtail hawk in which we have dozens of in this season, that landed on a snake. Being a holder of the falconers permit many yeas ago I knew what the bird would be doing at capture of the snake where it would entrail the snake immeadiatley. The hawk took off right after that with the snake in it's talons before I could ID the snake. I would think it was either a garter or water snake.

Chambo

A few years ago, I was birding in the Texas panhandle over on New Years day and we had a bad winter storm with a tremendous ice storm on new years eve and 6 inches of snow overnight. As we were driving along a quiet country road, we watched a red-tailed hawk jump off a powerline and dive on and capture a large coachwhip from the roadside ditch. The snake must have been active on the surface of the snow even though the temperature outside was under 25°! It actually put up a weak struggle as it was carried off!
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Chris Harrison

Just kidding.

John

Sweet, prob. some kind of common terrestrial like a coluber. I have occasionaly seen timbers out in extreme late fall and early spring. I also believe, however, that timbers are amoung the last to emerge as a species from their hibernacula. They seem not to be too motivated to waste energy by warming up, seeing as how when they warm up they digest faster, causing them to loose vital food storage. Has anyone else figured this? cw