The Sky Is Falling

It was a typical walk through the forest. The sun shone; birds sang; trees swayed, and an enormous snake almost fell on my head.

While out near the creek, I was photographing a leaf when I heard something rustling in the tall tree next to me. As I pulled my face away from my camera’s viewfinder, my peripheral vision caught the sudden movement of something falling out of the tree and onto the ground about three feet away, making a loud thud as it hit the tall grasses near the creek’s edge.

There is a Japanese saying that, “Even monkeys fall out of trees”, and I wondered if a squirrel had taken an unexpected fall. I stepped into the grass to investigate and saw this was no squirrel. It was a large, black rat snake. I thought maybe a raptor had taken it up in the trees and dropped the reptile when it heard me nearby, but to my dismay, I later learned rat snakes climbing trees is a thing. These snakes are described as avid climbers that can ascend very high into the trees. However, I don’t think the snake has the knees for taking 20 foot falls, so I’ll assume this snake fell accidentally.

By the time I snapped a photograph, my new friend was already on the move. Can you spot the snake’s tail in the photograph above?

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