Waterfalls & Snakes

Talk about waterfalls outside of New York state.

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JennGrover
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One of the great things I enjoy about photographing waterfalls in the winter is that the snakes have hibernated for the winter. I have never encountered snakes at any of the NY waterfalls I have visited and saw very few as a kid in the Finger Lakes area, but now that I live in PA, snakes, especially poisonous seem a little more bountiful. Ricketts Glen and Ohiopyle State Parks both have famous waterfalls but are also both known for rattlesnakes and Copperheads.

Are there any other major waterfall areas in NY or PA that are known for snake sightings? What are your experiences with snakes?
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hobkyl
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I haven't really ever seen too many snakes in my explorations. Garters mostly.

I do recall seeing a small snake in Deep Run Gully (Canandaigua Lake) many many years back that must have been someones escaped pet as it looked like a coral snake, it colors were ringed and bright...my cousin and I deftly afraid of snakes both ran off leaving it be.

On a different note...the only other experience with a snake other than a garter oddly enough wasn't too far down the road (East Lake Rd) where I believe I saw a Massagua (sp?) But all research says that they aren't typical for the area except for Iroquois NWR where a few may exist.

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cbobcat49
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I swear I heard a rattler at Sullivan Falls in PA a few years ago. Most of the falls along the Niagara Escarpment in Canada seems to have all sorts of small gray snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. Not sure what species they are. I haven't had any experience with snakes at falls in NY.
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I've seen rattlers in the Gunks along the rocks near what's called the Grand Canyon of the Gunks, and near Snake Den Bay (go figure) on Lake Champlain. That one just about made me jump out of my skin, as I walked within three feet of it getting to the car. It was not happy and rattled at me to make his point. Once I had my heart rate under control (there's no mistaking that sound, it hits you in the part of your brain that brings back the times of living in caves and pure survival is your only concern) I got some pictures:

[img2]http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7287/p ... esnake.jpg[/img2]

But I've never seen anything more than a shy garter snake near upstate waterfalls.
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cbobcat49 wrote:I swear I heard a rattler at Sullivan Falls in PA a few years ago. Most of the falls along the Niagara Escarpment in Canada seems to have all sorts of small gray snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. Not sure what species they are. I haven't had any experience with snakes at falls in NY.
Northern Water snakes... the juveniles migrating down stream are probably subject to current and helpless when it comes to falling over falls.
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hobkyl wrote: I do recall seeing a small snake in Deep Run Gully (Canandaigua Lake) many many years back that must have been someones escaped pet as it looked like a coral snake, it colors were ringed and bright...my cousin and I deftly afraid of snakes both ran off leaving it be.
The Coral (venomous) and Milk (safe) snakes have very similar colors. Seeing a coral in the woods in unlikely, since they are not adapted for cold weather and would most likely not survive the winter



Just remember Rings. If the patterns are Ringed.... full circles around the body, then it's poisonous. It is't just blotches, then you are ok. We have no native Ringed snakes in NY and I'm sure Penn as well.
Milk snakes are generally docile, but they can bite. And with all snakes, even the non-venomous ones, infections, especially salmonella is a huge concern.

Outside of Coral snakes, Pit vipers are another snake to be concerned with for NY and Pennsylvania (luckily humans killed off most of the pit vipers in NY, with a few populations of Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake around). It's amazing since Rattlers used to be very common in Upstate NY, causing hundreds of deaths each year. There's an Island in the Genesee in the City of Rochester names Rattlesnake Island, due the significant populations that live withing the rocks of the island.
Pit vipers, have sharp diamond-shaped heads and have a depression (pit) between the eye and the nostrils. They are always poisonous.

Running away is the best thing to do, since snakes typically do not chase.

I have no problem with snakes. I can handle them pretty well. But I'm not dumb enough to mess around with poisonous ones.
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Red & black, friend of Jack. Red & yellow, kill the fellow. The order of the ring colors is another way to differentiate between members of the king snake family who are non-venomous and coral snakes, which are venomous. Not that anyone is ever going to get that close to examine a snake that carefully, if in doubt! Up here, a milk snake is more often mistaken for a copperhead. Down south it's the scarlet kingsnake who suffers from mistaken identity with the coral snake.
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hobkyl
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Perhaps it was a milk snake...I just recall bright colors..but can't remember which colors. It seemed exotic to me at the time as I had only seen garters prior to that encounter.
“There’s an inconsequentiality to our lives that living in the wilderness shows up. Mountain are real, they set their limits, they set ours. They expose us, make us vulnerable and strong at the same time. “
--Alison Wat




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