Wow, things are slower than usual! Rain is great of course, but the snakes are more or less stuck at the dens until these sub-50 overnight temperatures ease up. Regardless, some have tried to get out and star their springtime activity, and along with that comes conflict with human development. Here are just some of the calls we’ve taken recently, all of which were relocated to suitable microhabitat within their estimated homerange.
And here we go! With overnight temperatures stabilizing in the 50s and daytime in the low 70s, that’s the signal for rattlesnakes to start getting active. Rattlesnakes will start waking up for the year and appearing on social media pages near you, and we start getting busy!
Wow, busy as always! Here are some of our recent snake removals from the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
We’ve been busy, not surprisingly. Rattlesnakes are now moving freely out from their dens looking for food and mates as temperatures continue to rise. Throughout April, we an expect this snake activity to increase until temperatures stay in the triple digits for consecutive days. Then, they’ll start making progress towards summer aestivation sites, where they will remain at or near until the monsoon.
Right now peak rattlesnake activity is, as expected, between 2pm and 5pm each day.
Spring is here and we’re, predictably, extremely busy. It’s a good thing! After the winter, we are always excited to get back to work. Homeowners … they may not be so excited.
People are often surprised to learn that the rattlesnake they’ve just found in the backyard may have been there, or very nearby, for months when it’s found in the early spring. Often, the rip rap and erosion control used by newer developments is perfect for this purpose, and those snakes take notice. As soon as spring comes and they emerge, the landscaped and well-watered backyards that surround it are perfect places to hunt.
If you see rabbits, quail, and other prey-sized items in your yard, you can assume that predators see them as well. That does mean rattlesnakes. Fortunately, a physical barrier like a rattlesnake fence will put a stop to that.
Snake activity is also really picking up. In the past couple of weeks, our hotline has gone from an average of 2 calls a day to more than a dozen snakes removed each day.
We were busy last year 🙂 Here’s a combination of the snakes we captured and relocated in late 2021 and the handful every week over the winter. Just a few more weeks and we’ll be back and busy!
This will be a big one … as the season winds to a close, snakes are busy. Not only are they looking for a last meal or two and mating, they have to travel to the places they plan on spending the winter. These dens, in the low and warm desert, can be just about anywhere that a snake can escape freezing temperatures and preserve the moisture they’ve been able to get during the year.
Typically, we remain quite busy through October and into about the second week of November. After that, rattlesnake activity decreases dramatically.
Typically, primary rattlesnake activity ends in mid-November in the Sonoran Desert, and a few weeks earlier in higher elevations.
As the season winds to a close, there is the expected flurry of activity right at dusk as snakes move towards winter dens.
This will continue throughout October, into mid-November, when snake activity will more or less stop entirely. Here’s an article detailing when snakes stop being active in the winter in Arizona.
Here are some of our recent relocations, with many more to post.
Late September and early October are usually pretty busy for us. As the monsoon wanes, we see snakes of all kinds getting ready for cooler conditions. That means there’s a lot to do: eating, mating, and traveling to wherever it is they want to wait out the winter. That can often mean they end up in a backyard or garage, and we’re called out to help.
A spike in calls usually happens right after dark. This will likely continue throughout October, dropping off dramatically in the first week of November. Of course the weather and conditions will largely determine how long this lasts, but this is a trend we see every year and we have no reason to believe it will be any different now.
Likewise, October is a time that many homeowners realize that the fear of having a rattlesnake in the yard is something that can be stopped at any time. Things like making landscaping changes and having a snake fence installed can make a huge difference.
As always, we’ve been busy. Not only with snake removals, but all sorts of field work. That includes travel all over the country, and even into Mexico, looking for wild snakes of all kinds.
That means I’m a bit backed up on some of our social media communications, so here’s an attempt to get caught up. Here are a good amount of the recent snake removal jobs we’ve done in the past few weeks.
With temperatures starting to look like Fall, we expect an uptick in activity that will last throughout the month. With all of the recent rain and what looks to have been a great monsoon, the baby rattlesnakes born this year will likely survive in great numbers. We expect to continue seeing those pop up in Arizona yards through October, into November.
