

Photos showing up in emails -- sent in by Kris Van Fleet, David McCoy and Bill Fenimore Lower Snake River in Washington Selected Responses/Comments

T his has to be the weirdest thing that ever floated by me on the Snake River. They were stuck together in death lock, each wanting to kill the other first. My guess is that the falcon snatched up the tasty snake, and it somehow got its tail around the falcon's neck, strangling it in midair causing both of them to crash into the river. They are both alive and well, considering. I think a few more minutes and the snake would have won. The tail was actually tied in a knot around the neck, and getting tighter by the second. I got the snake untied, and well, as you can see, they both made it. This is another one of those stories you tell, and are always acknowledged with "yeah, right!" Well, here's the proof. Neither of them bit me or scratched me; the snake didn't want to stop biting the falcon's leg, and only let go after I had untied everything else. I got the water out of the falcon's lungs with birdie inversion technique, and stayed with him until he was almost dried off in the sun, and flying a little. Ball of snake and falcon, that is the weirdest thing I have pulled out of the water so far, it beats the wagon wheel! tp

WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!????

Selected Responses/ : (E-mails from George R. Pisani [University of Kansas], 13 Jan 2012) Good morning,

A friend just sent me the link, so as a herpetologist I thought I'd let you know what I told her. Which is:

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LOL! Yes. and in fact it has been the focus of a lot of my detective work because said snake isn't found anywhere NEAR the Snake River. It took several versions for me to finally see the head of the snake clearly, though I called it as a ratsnake early on from the sharp angle the belly makes with the side of snake. Head nailed it as a Texas Ratsnake, so I emailed a friend in LA who has worked on them. He said when HE saw the email (which is a really interesting set of pics) it said "from Comal River" (TX), which made lots more sense.

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Have a great weekend!

George (E-mails from Ryan O'Donnell [Utah State University], 11 Jan 2012) Don't believe everything you read on the internet! Those pictures were almost certainly not taken on the Snake River in Washington. For one, the man is wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals in eastern Washington in late November, which is unlikely. (The average maximum temperature for the month is about 50 F). But more importantly, that snake is a Texas Fox Snake, which is found only in Texas and Louisiana, plus a little bit of Oklahoma. Not to mention the "falcon" is clearly not a falcon. (A young Red-tailed Hawk, I think? Tough to tell when it's all wet like that. It does look a little small in the hand to me for a Red-tail, but I'm not sure.)



Ryan O'Donnell

Logan, Utah (E-mails from Deborah Cannon, 21 Apr 2012) You have a series of pics posted...about a Hawk and a snake.

It IS on the snake river...Snake River, Texas. [Later she corrected this to the "Comal River," as George mentioned in the email above -- the Comal River is a 2.5 mile long navigable river in New Braunfels Texas] I know this as the man in the photo is a long time friend who lives in Austin.

Funny how stuff gets passed around with miss-information.