Northern Water Snakes

Check out this beautiful Northern Water Snake we saw sunning on a rock at Wildcat Falls. This guy was found literally about 12 feet from where we took video of a larger one 6 years ago that you can watch below. I'm both fascinated and extremely cautious of the buggers because I don't want to step on one causing harm to it or me. We found a second smaller one at night not far from our campfire which was a first for us. Until then I'd not seen one that wasn't sunning on a rock. Apparently they emit a musky scent that can attract butterflies as seen in our footage with a Zappa soundtrack.

While we're on the subject of snakes, here is more footage from 2002 taken at the French Broad River near Asheville, NC. Here we have two male Black Rat Snakes tied up into a knot apparently dueling. At least that is what a wildlife professor at UT said. We thought it was a male and female getting it on. Yeah it's pretty amateurish and shaky but you get the idea.