Black snake closeup

I was leading a walk this morning at the Avalonia Land Conservancy's hoped-for Babcock Ridge property, and as we were trekking up a steep slope left by the last glacier, one of the members of our Corps of Discovery noticed something dark in a branch of a beech tree. The initial thought was that it was some kind of fungus, but when we got close to the mystery object, it turned out to be a tightly coiled Black Rat Snake. My guess is that, uncoiled, it would have been about three feet long. The snake, however, was completely uninterested in moving. It was about 10 feet off the ground, and what it was doing there is anybody's guess. Black snakes will hunt for baby birds in nests, and sometimes the reptiles will even way-lay a preoccupied avian parent. But the nesting season is long over, and the arboreal pickings must be pretty slim at this time of year. Perhaps the snake was thinking that if it remained more or less immobile—no problem in the morning chill—a mouse or a squirrel wouldn't notice the predator and come within range. Or maybe it was just catching a last bit of quality time in the sun. Soon enough, the snake will have to descend and trade its beech eyrie for the subterranean safety of a winter hibernaculum in the rocks.