Temperatures are dropping and the regular snake season is coming to a close. Typically, it wraps up, more or less, by the end of the first week of November. This year is looking typical, with a handful of snake removal calls still coming into our hotline and a number of reported sightings, but nowhere near the frequency as a month before.
The monsoon moisture is bringing a lot of rattlesnake activity to the homes of the valley. As always, we have been very busy – now with the addition of baby rattlesnakes!
24/7 Snake Removal & Prevention:
Phoenix-metro: 480-237-9975
Tucson-metro: 520-308-6211
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.
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!
We’re in the dead of winter and getting a bit of time off on the snake removal side, which gives a bit of time to catch up on some photos from the end of last year. When things get busy, it’s not possible or reasonable to post every snake we catch, so things get spaced out to make sure that we have time to eat and sleep in between social media postings, and so that you don’t get upset with 20+ photos every single day 🙂
Our first removal of the year, however, came in right on Jan 1! Marissa caught two adult Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes hanging out in a garage.
These are the last of our 2021 calls and a couple of our first of the new year. Come on, Spring!
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.
This is just a small number of the removals we’ve done in the past few weeks. We are busier than ever. No, this doesn’t mean snakes are more numerous, but people sure are 🙂
