By late afternoon we had walked several miles down the road.  No Cottonmouths yet - very unusual.  I've never been skunked when it came to Moccasins here and was hoping this wasn't going to be a first.  We decided to walk back and grab some food and water before working the other end.   After a quick break at Wolf Lake, we headed back to the road. As we drove alongside a wet area Jeff made a great spot from the back seat of the truck - a Cottonmouth stretched out on a log a few feet away from the road.  We stopped and Jeff secured the snake with a pair of tongs for us to examine.  A three footer, somewhat thin after its recent emergence.  We weren't getting skunked after all.  We admired and photographed the snake and returned it to its log, where it promptly dove in the water and buried its head in the muck, leaving the rest of its body visible, ostrich style.

We parked and headed up into the woods, skirting the base of some lower bluffs.  It wasn't  too long before we found our second cottonmouth of the day, a juvenile crawling through a rivulet of ice-cold spring water.  From the size and pattern this snake was probably born last summer.  Another photographic opportunity for us and then we helped the little moccasin to the other side of the rivulet and on its way down to the swamps.  Flat rocks near water afforded the opportunity to look for salamanders, and in short order we found a Longtail and several Cave Salamanders (Eurycea lucifuga).  Longtails are nice, but there's nothing like a Cave Salamander for eye candy.  I've never seen a dull one - I don't think they come in Ugly.

While we were oohing and aahing over the lovely lucifugas, we heard a rustling noise overhead, in a bit of brush at the top of the bluff.  It sounded like the noise a snake makes in dry vegetation.  In short order we discovered the source, as a two foot Cottonmouth slid off the bluff, bounced off an outcrop two-thirds of the way down, and landed with a plop about fifteen feet away from us!

Matt had his videocam running, but did not catch thirty foot plop; he did catch our reactions on audio as we hastened over to examine the snake. It seemed fine, 'gapping' at our approach.  I had a good laugh - my mind's eye had pictured these creatures emerging from their hibernaculums and slowly making their way down the bluffs to the wetlands beyond...now I had a new vision of these serpents making use of gravity to make a quick transit!

We had some fun with this.  Were Cottonmouths on a track to evolve into a Gliding Tree Moccasin?  When confronted with a precipice, do they all launch themselves into the air, trusting to luck and a thick pile of leaf litter?

I love this place.  I never fail to learn or see something new.