Claire was our next snake to track and find.  She was somewhere near the bottom of a very steep slope, which curved around in a semi-circle, much like an amphitheater.  Greg said that some Timbers spent the winter in sheltered places like this, crawling into small holes and cracks when the cold weather came.  There were no rocks or rock ledges here; a lot of my experiences with Crotalus horridus involved limestone bluffs, so this was a different scenario for me to ponder.

It didn't take us very long to find Claire.  She was close by a large fallen log, a common place for Timber Rattlesnakes to lie in wait for prey.  Rodents and other mammals often make use of decaying logs, and if the rattler detects the molecular scent of a 'rodent highway', it will patiently wait for the next traveler.  Claire was big, robust, and beautiful; her pale ground color was offset by a brown vertebral stripe and dark chevrons.  She moved her head to face us as we approached, so we kept our distance to avoid disturbing her any further.  It took Greg a while to pull in GPS coordinates down in this sheltered hollow, but eventually all the data was gathered and we left Claire to wait for her next meal.

Our next snake was to show me that I still had much to learn about Timber Rattlers.  We moved on to another section of forest, and made our way up and down a series of steep slopes.  In a cool and shaded ravine, a trio of thick logs lay down-slope in parallel, and 'Oops' lay coiled next to them.  I could hazard a guess as to how this snake got his name, but what I didn't understand is what Oops was doing in this cool, shady place in early September.  I thought he should be on a south-facing slope with a sunny exposure, rather than lurking down here among the damp ferns.  No, Greg said - a number of the snakes they tracked spent a considerable amount of time in this type of habitat during the summer months.

Thinking about it, I realized this side of the hill might provide more opportunities to catch a meal - more moisture, more vegetation, and more rodents.  Thermoregulation was not a pressing issue during this time of the year, since air and ground temperatures would be fairly stable and more than warm enough to sustain a large snake like Oops.  A lot of my experiences with Crotalus horridus had taken place in the spring or in autumn, when cold overnight temperatures made basking in the sun necessary.  Greg said that tracking data indicated that some snakes may have moved to the moist hillsides to shed their skin.