The last weekend of July, my friend Gene and his son Cary and I took off to Florida to do some snake hunting. It wasn't the best of times to go, but with work and school, we couldn't get away any other time. We spent three nights riding the roads in the panhandle near Tallahassee. One night the weather did not cooperate and we saw no snakes at all. Sadly, most of the snakes we did find were DOR, or "dead on the road." To us, it appeared that some of the snakes had been killed intentionally. We came across a large Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that had just been run over or killed by someone. The best find of the trip was a Coral Snake that really surprised us. It was crossing a dirt road during our first day. We were able to take some photos of the snake although it was very excited and never stopped moving around. We let it go on its way back into the scrub thicket. In addition to these finds, we also saw a couple of racers, a Florida Banded Watersnake,a Pygmy Rattlesnake and a red-colored garter snake. We saw several turtle species, as well. During the day, we visted some local attractions and went to the Gulf beaches and had lunch in Apalachicola. On our way back home, we stopped off in Atlanta to visit a reptile show. We are already making plans to go back to Florida in a month or so.
