I surveyed some nesting sites via kayake today and saw a dolphin, a sting ray, lots of mullet and redfish, and one giant ass cotton mouth snake.
Most definitely. It is going to be a fun summer, and I'll make enough to move back to Portland in the fall. Things are looking up.
I knew that joke was coming. I have no ties to Florida so I really don't care. Make fun of it all you want. I was really happy to learn that there is a common fish species called mullet. It has made for some easy jokes. But that cotton mouth was no joke. There were some fledgling juvenile birds I was checking out and that thing popped out of the vegetation about 3 feet away from me on top of an oyster bar. I jumped back about 3 feet. That was a big snake.
Shit man! Is that the Cotton Mouth? I was running to my car and came across a Garter Snake. Damn near stepped on the thing, but I jumped that split second between noticing it, and realizing it was just a harmless Garter. I feel like humans have a subconscious survival instinct about snakes, like it's a natural reaction to jump when you come across one in the wild.
That is the perpetrator. When I first saw him he was about 3 feet away. The primal fear and natural jumping back has to be a part of our instinctual brain. I love reptiles and have studied some herpitology, but if you get blind sided, you are going to jump. It is part of our DNA at this point.
Oh dude we totally do, our ancestors got knocked off so much by snakes and predators of the night, I imagine that's where most of our fear of the dark comes from as a species... Ancestors telling stories from generation to generation and it just spread into our mind.
