Mike was in tune with his environment that day and spotted an adult pygmy rattler on the dike. I began to wonder how many I had stepped on. Then came the really fun part, entering the hammock where most of the snakes lived. A walking trail leads through the hammock but central Florida had recently been favored with tremendous rains. The trail was a foot deep in water, which was over two feet deep in the woods themselves.
Some snakes seek refuge on higher ground or vegetation during floods.
And the little rattlers were on exposed areas of dry ground as well as on palmetto fronds and in low-lying bushes. Mike found one more than six feet above the water in a wax myrtle tree. This gave me a new regard for pushing vegetation aside while charging through the woods off the trail. We stayed approximately three hours and found 28 pygmy rattlesnakes. I say we found them because I was there.