Equinox, snakes are right on cue

These are the last hours of summer 2008, which ends at 11:45 a.m. on Monday. In that instant, fall begins —- the autumnal equinox, as the first day of fall is known.

The equinox is one of two times during the year —- the other being the vernal equinox, or the first day of spring —- when the sun crosses the equator, and day and night are of approximately equal length. On the first day of fall, the sun rises due east and sets due west.

Autumn is one of the best times of the year to be outdoors in Georgia. In my mind, it’s our most colorful season. The dogwood berries already have turned a scarlet red. The bright yellow goldenrods and the wine-red leaves of sumac along the old wooden fence make a perfect picture. And it’s hard now to pass by a roadside fall fruit stand without stopping —- like the one in Luthersville, where I stopped the other day and bought two hefty baskets of muscadines.

Soon, the weather will be perfect —- the days neither too hot nor too cool.

Snake report

My friend Whit Gibbons, a University of Georgia ecologist, says he loves late summer and early fall for another reason: It’s the time of year when baby snakes and lizards are emerging.

“It is a biological fact that the numbers of most North American snakes are greater in late summer and fall than any other time of the year,” said Whit, co-author of the book “Snakes of the Southeast.” “And baby snakes are often more visible because they are moving around looking for their first meal.”

With that in mind, last week I drove over to the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Jasper County, east of Atlanta, to learn more about Georgia’s snakes from another snake expert, Pete Griffin, a wildlife interpretive specialist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

This is a good time of the year for snakes because, like many people, they also prefer days that are not too hot and not too cool, Pete explained. Being cold-blooded animals that rely only on their surroundings for body heat, snakes don’t like very hot or very cool weather. They are generally inactive during those periods.

Snakes, said Pete, are highly beneficial, even crucially important, to the environment. For one thing, they eat a lot of rats, mice and other critters deemed to be pests.

Snakes, however, are almost universally misunderstood and even feared by many people. A National Wildlife Federation survey says that at least 20 percent of the U.S. population suffers some degree of snake fear.

Folks such as Pete Griffin and Whit Gibbons spend a lot of their time trying to dispel that fear. Pete often uses several live snakes in his talks and walks around a classroom with a live snake draped over his shoulders.

He noted that of Georgia’s 41 native snake species, only six of them —- the coral, copperhead, cottonmouth (water moccasin) and eastern diamondback, pygmy and timber rattlesnakes —- are venomous.

Most Georgia snakes are born in August and September, another reason snakes are more likely to be seen this time of year. Some, such as the timber rattlesnake (found all over Georgia), also mate during the fall. The males may be seen now crossing roads or slithering through woods and fields in search of females.

Most of the time, though, many snake species stay underground or under cover. Gardeners digging up the ground occasionally may encounter ring neck, worm, red-bellied, brown, earth and crowned snakes, most of which may be no larger than a big earthworm. Larger snakes such as rat snakes and racers may take refuge in piles of brush or firewood. Water snakes, especially banded water snakes, are sometimes found in areas along streams, swamps or farm ponds.

Pete’s take-home message is this: If you come across a snake, simply let it be. “They just want to be left alone,” he said. At the same time, however, he encourages folks to learn more about snakes and their importance so that the creatures will become better appreciated and understood.

Some other snake facts from Pete:

> Ninety percent of all snake bites to humans are between the tips of the fingers and the elbow, which suggests that most people who were bitten were attempting to pick up or handle the snake in some manner.

> All snakes have teeth. The venomous snakes also have hollow fangs in the front of the mouth that are used to inject venom.

> Snakes can’t hear airborne sounds (although they can feel vibrations) because they have no external ears. They also don’t have eyelids, so they don’t blink and seem to be always staring.

> They use their forked tongue to “taste the air” in order to determine their surroundings.

In the sky

The moon will be last quarter tonight, says astronomer David Dundee of the Northwest Georgia Science Museum. A trio of planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars, set in the northwest just after sunset. Jupiter is high in the south just after dark and sets in the west around midnight.

seabrk@comcast.net