Category: USA
I was walking along a path in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge when I heard lots of rustling behind where I had just come from. I turned back and saw a black snake flopping around on the ground and then all of a sudden it stopped. I raced back with my camera and started taking pictures. It wasn’t until I got close enough that I realized this black racer had ambushed a juvenile copperhead (venomous) and was in the process of eating it! The only way this snake would be able to eat the venomous copperhead without dying is if it managed to get the head into it’s mouth before the snake could bite it, and then suffocate it to death which must have been what the initial rustling was. The next few photos are of the racer consuming the copperhead, an event that to my knowledge has never been documented or photographed before!
After less than 30 seconds, the black racer elevated the front part of it’s body off the ground and slithered into the bushes with the copperhead firmly grasped in the mouth and two thirds of the body dangling alongside the racer.
I took this photo just after the snkae had finished off the copperhead. No doubt it was going to need to rest and digest for awhile.
While helping out with a red wolf recovery project (photos to come later) we came across this timber rattlesnake basking in the late afternoon sun. I crawled out on the road to get this photo, making sure to stay back far enough that if it tried to strike me it wouldn’t be able to reach.
An adult copperhead rattlesnake found resting under some old, discarded plywood. Under the same bunch of plywood was a black racer and blue spotted salamanders.
This non-venomous snake was also basking on a gravel road. With a head-on-shot and small apeture (2.8) I was able to get just the face and surrounding gravel in focus with the remainder of the body out of focus and angling through the frame for a more intersting photo.
Owen Slater Photography 