Posted on 05/30/2013 9:55:26 AM PDT by Clint N. Suhks
WASHINGTON - They're not on a plane, but snakes in a tree could still be scary -- especially when they're spotted in D.C.
DCist says an email in an Adams Morgan Yahoo Group by a D.C. police sergeant discussed snakes falling out of trees at Walter Pierce Park in Northwest.
The posting was reported by the website PoPville and reads:
"On Thursday, May 23, 2013 around 11:40am a call came in about a couple of snakes that fell out of the trees. When the snakes fell they scared the children, and everyone fled. This was in the playground area. I responded but found no snakes. I caught one small enough to fit inside an empty water bottle I had. It was probably a black rat snake. They are indigenous to trees and the warm weather is drawing them out."
Albimar Cuadrasleal, a painter who sometimes does work at a building near the park, tells WTOP the snake sighting occurred around the time when he was parking his car last Thursday.
He says he heard a commotion at the park, and helped remove about six children from the area. He says women at the park said the snake came out of a tree, and he took this cellphone video of a snake in a playground at the park:
Cuadrasleal estimates the snake was about 4 feet long, and says he saw a smaller snake come out of a tree at the park about a week earlier.
The police officer who responded to the park for the snake sighting also tells WTOP he took the smaller snake he found to the National Zoo, where it was identified as a northern brown snake.
PoPville notes that the National Zoo says black rat snakes tend to be shy and will avoid confrontation if possible. They are not venomous, kill their prey by constriction and often will climb trees.
The zoo says some of the adult snakes also will "attempt to protect themselves."
"They coil their body and vibrate their tails in dead leaves to simulate a rattle," the zoo says. "If the snakes continue to be provoked, they will strike."
The Northern brown snake, meanwhile, also is non-venomous. Its prey includes worms and slugs.
Have you ever seen the movie when it is payed on regular TV?
That line is changed to (And no I am not kidding): "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE MONKEY FIGHTING SNAKES ON THIS MONDAY FRIDAY PLANE!"
I've always wanted to ask Samuel Jackson how they got him to do that overdub. I couldn't have managed for the uncontrollable fits of laughter it would've forced me into every time I went to utter those words into the microphone!
DC was, is, and always will be, a swamp.
I had to toss one of these out of my fenced in back yard last week here in NC. The dogs were barking at it like mad, and it was coiled to strike. After I got him over the fence, he scampered across the street right up the tree in the front yard across the street. Boy, was he was pissed at me.....
cube bound....received “malicious website blocked” warning at WTOP link....?
snakes moving to washDC, eh?
snakes of a feather, flock together
Not sure of the exact name of it Could be a rat snake. All kinds of squirrels and birds nest in that tree so it has been well fed.
This time of year they’re after the baby birds which have hatched and are not yet able to fly. We have to put snake-a-way all around our plants where the birds have made nests as the snakes will crawl up and take the babies. The mother just leaves and never comes back.
I’d tather have snakes in the trees instead of these damn cicadas. It sounds like Star Trek phasers cranked on high all day, every day.
Less than hour ago, when I was outside, two Robins was raising hell in a small pine tree about 50 yards from the house.
I walked over to see what all the fuss was about and saw a snake at their nest.
20 gage #4 shot and snake no more.
I wish I'd known that the last time I went out to watch a black snake undulate across the driveway. Thanks for the information.
I used to catch garters and milk snakes when I was a kid growing up in northern Michigan and I vaguely remember seeing only one grass snake.....
How do copperheads, (live-birth snakes) interbreed with black snakes (egg-layers)?
All the dangerous snakes are easy to I.D. It’s something everyone should know, it would save a lot of senseless panic.
” snake-a-way”?
Is that for real?
I had the same thought, but you got here first. :)
This was reported in the local paper about five years back, when I lived in Spotsylvania County. As the shrubs and trees (general cover) on the property reached maturity, finding big shed snake skins was common. Field mice were a big problem. I suspect that’s why the snakes took up residence. One shed skin I found would have belonged to a snake about as thick as my forearm, and about five feet long.
I also recall his character calling John McClane a “racist melon farmer” on a TV-edited showing of Die Hard 3.
They can't put their tail in their mouth and roll down hills either, it's all just hype from people who are afraid of snakes.
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