I was raised in rattlesnake country also, but never gave them all that much thought. All the encounters I’ve had with them they’ve been more frightened of me than them, and for good reason- the largest rattler is no match for a relatively small human with a garden hoe or shovel. I never kill a viper unless it abodes too close to my home, like underneath it.
Every instance I heard of people being bit when I lived in the Santa Monica mountains they were running and took the snake by surprise. That almost happened to me once but I saw the cluster of rattlers before I was quite in striking range- who says white boys can’t jump!
Where I am now there are only copper heads, and they seem more dangerous because they are smaller and don’t give any warning. Last week my helper killed one on my property which I was not happy about. I would simply have moved it to another site.
One year the coppers began breeding in in my great piles of plastic plant pots, following the voles that love to nest in these shelters. I didn’t realize it until my neighbor started finding copperheads in his basement.
I killed off the voles with poison and the copperheads left the neighborhood for the most part. I never volunteered to my neighbor the source of his problem. He was enjoying the drama but probably wouldn’t have appreciated the fact that my business was the source of it.
I’m surprised the hot pepper doesn’t work for your squirrels Alan. They sell the hot pepper bird suit blocks here that work great for feeding the birds squirrel free. I grew ghost peppers two years ago just because they had them at the nursery. I only ate a half of one in a very large kettle of chili and it was so hot I could barley eat it! The rest of them I sewed with thread and hung them up. I was thinking of cooking them in water and putting them in the sprayer to repel deer and rabbits. I’m not sure if it will work. If it does I might try growing beans again. It might be hard to keep up on the sprays though.
I’ve never heard of anyone being successful using hotwax to protect fruit from squirrels. Show me a source for the effective stuff in bird feeders and I will by samples for my bird indulging neighbors. They help the local squirrels survive winter. If the stuff actually works I will find out in short order.
I agree with you, Alan. My problem is, I walk my front slope quite a bit, as it is where the majority of my citrus, guava, bananas are planted. We have a fair amount of vegetation that goes to the ground, a perfect lurking place for snakes to sit and stay cool. I am sure I’ve walked by many a rattler who had decided I wasn’t enough of a threat to either send out a warning rattle or strike. But, I really don’t want them out there, as I have to walk that slope a lot, and also do things like bend over and pull weeds So, not a fan of having them anywhere on my property. Plus, they can be tempted to sneak into my fenced area of my yard, where my 3 Aussies run around. Don’t want my dogs bit, either. So, no rattlers allowed on my property. Period. If was good enough and brave enough to use a snake loop, I would. But I am better at wielding a sharp shovel. You made a good point, and one I try to do - keep the rodent population down. I try to keep my yard less interesting to rodents (minus the fruit trees, nothing I can do about that), and I keep bait stations filled all over my yard with non-kill through bait (so I don’t kill the predators that might eat a poisoned rat or squirrel). So, if I can keep the rodent population down, the snakes aren’t so interested in setting up housekeeping here.
HQ, I’m not suggesting my sanguine attitude about rattlesnakes is a superior attitude- it’s just an alternative. I expect the number of people struck by rattlesnakes each year is exceedingly small but that is not necessarily much comfort if your property is their utopia. My season of copperheads taught me that much. My boy was a toddler then.
Oh, totally understand, Alan, and even though they are dangerous, they are still very valuable members of our ecosystem. So I feel badly having to dispatch with them. All the while screaming like a little girl!
From Wiki
It has been estimated that 7,000–8,000 people per year receive venomous bites in the United States, and about 5 of those people die. Most fatal bites are attributed to the eastern and western diamondback rattlesnake.
You kill almost as many rattlesnakes as all the rattlesnakes in this country combined manage to kill humans.
The King snake is the rattlers’ competitor. It is a better hunter and kills rattlers as well. Knowing there is a large and thriving population of King snakes in southern CA, I have no qualms killing rattlesnakes in or near suburban areas. Out in the open spaces – well that’s their backyard and I leave them alone.
We have a BIG California King snake that has taken up residence in our front yard. And let me tell you, then can MOVE. They are constrictors and are very agile. And yes, one of their top prey are baby rattlesnakes. They are not affected by the rattlesnake’s venom (not immune, but have a tolerance for it). It may stun them for a brief moment, but they have the ability to recover. There are some good photos and short videos of the California King snake here:
We have garter snakes here, but no rattlesnakes. My boys love to find them and catch them. I think that’s cool, except that I want them to be happy in my yard so they eat lots of slugs. I would imagine in AZ and SOcal you don’t have a lot of slugs.
Lots of songbirds live in places where there are different heights, like semi-dwarf, dwarf trees, bushes and low plants mixed in, so they can hide from hawks. Also if you have a lot of biological diversity, and you don’t spray synthetic chemicals, so they’ll have something to eat.
JOhn S
PDX OR
Spraying synthetic chemicals in no way precludes the existence of food for birds. I fell for the organic mantra in about 1968, now it is the fashion. The concept was as naive 45 years ago as it is today, IMO.
Responsible and intelligent use of synthetic materials is required to grow my favorite fruits efficiently in the humid regions as it is perhaps coming to be in the entire country with the onslaught of new pests from abroad, BMS and SWD being the worst of the latest.
My low spray synthetic approach has never meant that I have fewer birds, bees and butterflies than my neighbors. If anything, the opposite is true.
Incidentally, my birds were late, but have arrived.
I didn’t say that synthetics precludes food for birds. Small songbirds mostly eat insects, which are killed and poisoned on purpose with synthetics. They don’t eat large fruit as a large part of their diet. Large fruit is great for crows. Lots of crows are a good sign that your ecosystem is way out of balance. If your diet was mostly poison, would you thrive more? I didn’t think so. There is a lot involved in soil microbiology, and the food web. I don’t appreciate being called naive. If synthetic materials are required to grow your favorite fruits in humid regions, how is it possible that there are organic farms in those regions? The balance of nature is a useful way to deal with invasive insects as well.
John S
PDX OR
I tried really hard to stay convinced of that, myself. That if I just gave everything time, it would all balance out. I suppose it did, but that balance meant that over the almost 20 years that I tried, I got less and less for myself, and the insects, fungi, molds, diseases were getting it all in the end.
There is no actual balance. It’s a teeter totter. If I want that teeter totter to balance, I’ve found that natural human ingenuity and the use of human created materials is a boon. Nature doesn’t have emotions, doesn’t “care”, doesn’t seek balance and harmony. Those are human ideas. I’m eating intentionally planted and tended crops now that I’ve added some effective treatments to specific crops. I’m happier, my family is happier, and my wildlife is abundant.
No one is trying to convince you to do things any differently, John. Your way makes you happy. That’s good. I encourage you to keep at it. There is no one way to grow things satisfactorily.
May the spotted wing drosophila and the brown marmoted stink bug never reach Portland.
Richard, I am in complete agreement with you on that. King snakes can move very very quickly, same with gopher snakes. They are very powerful constrictors, and we watched a King snake take on a small Southern Pacific rattlesnake in our front yard (on the driveway), and it was really amazing to watch. A little horrifying - not gonna lie - had to control the urge to have a panic attack, but it was really interesting to watch. The rattlesnake bit the king snake several times. It made the king snake sort of freeze, but not let go. Then, in a few seconds, it seems to sort of “shake it off”, and continue to constrict the rattler. Apparently, they have the ability to neutralize the rattlesnake’s venom. Once the rattlesnake was dead, I went back into the house. Both the king snake and the gopher snake will go down into gopher and ground squirrel holes after them as well, very cool.
Alan, the Southern Pacific rattlesnake has a different kind of venom than the Western Diamondback. It has a combination type of venom, with more neurotoxins, much like the Mojave rattlesnake. They are very, very dangerous rattlers. My neighbor (and also gardener extraordinaire) is a neurologic radiologist. He is very informed about this type of snake, and he and I chatted at length about why they are so dangerous. Locally here, the ER docs have nicknamed them the “people biting snake”, as they tend to be more agressive, and most of the rattlesnake bites we see here in the San Diego county ER’s are from this snake. They pack a much more powerful bite, and have a higher fatality and permanent injury rate. I’m not a very big gal, so I am very cautious. Here is more info about our local rattler, and you can see why I have zero compunctions about dispatching with an rattler that I find on my property. Not just to protect myself and my husband, but all my 3 Aussies (who all get a rattlesnake vaccination every 6 months):
According to this article and other statistics, there are about 7,000 bites a year and about 15 fatalities, annually. But even more significant is about 25% of people bitten suffer permanent damage of some sort. Being a small person, my odds go up significantly to have either permanent damage, or have the bite actually be fatal. I don’t like those stats as a nurse. As I mentioned, nearly all the rattlers I’ve found on my property, and we’ve found on neighboring properties have been the Southern Pacific rattler. And, the anti-venom that is stocked in the hospitals is almost completely ineffective against this type of neurotoxin. And, I’ve taken care of patients status-post rattlesnake bites. I do not ever want to go through that. Weeks in the hospital, mostly in ICU (especially someone my size), possibly on the ventilator. Permanent nerve or extremity damage. It is a real and scary thing. When you consider I’ve dispatched with at least 8 rattlers in that many years, and who knows how many are still residing on my property, you really do have to be cautious. Lastly, the drought is causing snakes to come into our yards, both following prey looking for water, as well as snakes looking for water, themselves.
John, my songbirds will get into my fruit trees (House Finches mainly, but a few others as well), besides the Scrub Jays and California Thrashers. I try to keep my use of synthetics down to a bare minimum, and if I do have to use a synthetic product, I try to use the least offensive agent as I possibly can. I can tell you for sure, this does not preclude food for birds or any decrease in my songbird population. Plenty of other insects for them to eat, that are not bothering my fruit trees. My yard is a Certified Wildlife Sanctuary. It is full of songbirds as well as other California native birds and lots of cool migratory birds. Nearly all perching birds eat a mix of insects, seeds and fruits, the amounts quantities and timing vary from species, but in general, during nesting season, birds tend to eat a diet higher in insects to provide my protein for nestlings, and more fruit and seeds during other times.
Thank you Muddy Mess. I wish you bountiful harvests. Both pests are already here and I deal with them successfully with the balance of nature. I hand kill stink bugs, because I am part of nature.
John S
PDX OR
John, I don’t think you should make a broad sweep of the results of the use of synthetic pesticides. I have plenty of nesting birds on my property and an abundance of insect food for them- just not caterpillars from my fruit trees.
There are lots of other plants on and near my property that are not sprayed and I intentionally create habitat for birds,holding back the weed whacking and mowing enough to let things flower and seed. I choose flowers that are nourishing for birds (and bees).
The price I pay is stinkbugs and tarnished plant bugs like this habitat as well, and peach trees next to my wild areas tend to be bumpy from them because there is no poison on them for most of the season.
I wear cotton clothes for the most part, but find synthetic insulation helps me get through NE winters. The idea that modern chemistry should be absolutely excluded from modern agriculture is not well rooted in logic. It is essentially a faith based construct. One much easier to maintain when you don’t get rain during the growing season. And one I pretty much adhere to in my veg garden.
Gardening is the practice of maintaining a natural imbalance that favors the gardener. Natures balance does not favor human beings and if mother nature could speak she would likely scream her abhorrence of the human dominance of this planet whose population represents a serious natural imbalance that makes debate about organic agriculture seem absolutely trivial. Agricultural chemicals are a small fraction of the industrial pollution humans inflict and at least they are used for the essential production of food.
If you want to help the birds, focus on reducing the human population and increasing wild habitat. In the real world the reduction in habitat is what threatens them most. Every bit of food I get from my residential property returns a certain amount of agricultural land to wilderness.
I agree that the human population should be decreased. I also agree that wild habitat should be increased. I don’t understand how you and Hoosierquilt can be so absolutely certain that you aren’t harming birds when you poison their food supply. How can you be so certain?
The original poster was talking about what to do to improve bird populations. I answered the question. I didn’t tell you what kind of sweater to wear. I never said that no one should ever use any synthetic products.
If we understand how nature works, we wont’ be fighting against it. Many microscope studies have looked into what happens when synthetic pesticides are used. Broad ranges of insect and microbial life are wiped out. Not only those that eat crops, but also those that eat the pests. The vast majority of bugs are helpful to the gardener. Those are killed too.
I choose to try to understand the microbiology rather than to kill all of it and sort out the bad characters later. Much of the nutrition and the ability of the ecosystem to defend itself, including mycorrhizal fungi are negatively affected when we poison them. I eat many types of fungi and I use others for medicine. They are way cheaper than pharmaceuticals and don’t have side effects. They also improve the soil.
I get a tremendous yield from my garden, and each year I get more, because nature is on my team. We have destroyed the topsoil in our country and greatly reduced the nutrition in our food by poisoning the plants and soil and tilling. I choose not to do these things. I like healthy nutritious food for my family and no poison around when my kids are playing in the yard. I don’t understand why I should be condemned so harshly for choosing that.
John S
PDX OR
So, not a fan of having them anywhere on my property. Plus, they can be tempted to sneak into my fenced area of my yard, where my 3 Aussies run around. Don’t want my dogs bit, either. So, no rattlers allowed on my property. Period. If was good enough and brave enough to use a snake loop, I would. But I am better at wielding a sharp shovel. You made a good point, and one I try to do - keep the rodent population down. I try to keep my yard less interesting to rodents (minus the fruit trees, nothing I can do about that), and I keep bait stations filled all over my yard with non-kill through bait (so I don’t kill the predators that might eat a poisoned rat or squirrel). So, if I can keep the rodent population down, the snakes aren’t so interested in setting up housekeeping here.