CICERO, NY - Warren Engell said the last time he encountered a rattlesnake in Cicero was during the 1960s.

Earlier this month, he came face-to-face with another one on his property, hearing it rattle as he watched it slither away.

Engell, an alpaca farmer who lives on Island Road in Cicero, said he was mowing his lawn when the machine got stuck in the grass. He got off the mower and as he started walking, he noticed something moving in the grass.

"I said ‘Holy smoke and then noticed it was this big rattlesnake,'’ he said. “I was two feet from it and I got out my phone and zoomed in on its tail.”

"It startled me, but I wasn’t afraid,'' he said. “It didn’t have the pronounced viper head of a Timber rattlesnake.”

The snake has been identified as an Eastern massasauga rattlesnake. It’s venom is more toxic than many other rattlesnakes, experts say. However, the snake is shy and won’t typically bite unless bothered, they said.

Massasaugas are small snakes with thick bodies, heart-shaped heads and vertical pupils, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The average length of an adult is about 2 feet - about the size of the one Engell saw.

The snake is a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Eastern massasaugas live in an area that extends from Central New York and southern Ontario to south central Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Their numbers have declined, said Harry Greene, ecology and evolutionary biology professor at Cornell University.

In New York, there are two isolated colonies of these venomous snakes - in the Cicero swamp and Bergen swamp near Rochester, he said. Engell’s property is on the edge of the Cicero Swamp.

Greene said he guesses each colony might have a couple hundred snakes.

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park has one named Cicero.

Engell’s neighbor, Fred Woznica, hit a rattlesnake with his mower a few days later but the two aren’t sure if it is the same snake.

Woznica said he mistakenly ran over it with his mower, and its head was gone when he looked at it.

"I think they are scary,'' he said. “I was baling hay, so I hope the snake head isn’t in one of those bales.”

Engell said he could hear the “buzzing” sound of the rattles as the snake slithered away into the woods, which he captured on his video.

"These snakes are gorgeous,'' he said.