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Posted by Norman on August 10, 2001 at 10:18:47:
In Reply to: Re; Norman posted by J.T. on August 10, 2001 at 08:42:11:
Always nice to hear from someone local, I have very little field experiance outside my home area of s. Fla, except as a kid in N. Carolina in middle school. The "blocks" is an area over past St. Rd 29 that runs from Everglades City up to Immokolee over towords the west coast. You go out Alligator Alley to st. rd 29 and go south about 6 miles until you pass "Copeland" which is a post office and conveniance store on the left. Just past there is a small sign on the right pointing the way to a scenic white rock road through the Fakahatchee strand. It's a thirteen mile basically gravel road that is almost impassable in rainy season. I have actually seen Fla panther, deer and bear crossing the road in broad daylight there! Once you get past the dirt part it comes out on a huge grid of old abandoned paved roads that is what we call the blocks. I use to get out and look, but it became easier to just drive and look for stuff on the roads. Most herp rich section of the world I've ever seen. We had days when we'd just call out what it was on the road and keep going. Great photo op's out there. Closer to home, I worked at Palm Aire off powerline road in Pompano when it was being developed and the golf course maintenance guys use to run over the diamondbacks there and deliberately try to "skid" on them because they felt just running over them didn't kill them. They talked of one big one they ran over a few times that they felt was especially tough! I'm 40 years old and alot of my field collecting was done about fourteen years ago now, I hunted the dike just west of Markham Park back when the zoo was there, brought a friend real early before sun up once and he totally freaked out when the lion over at the zoo made a ferocious noise- he forgot about the zoo being there! It's hard to believe there could be a population of Diamondbacks anywhere in Broward County at this point. I use to keep them, and I have a love for them, I even like the smell! They are awesome critters no doubt. I caught one that I swear looked like a landscape timber in the road, sold it to Bill Haast at the Serpentarium ( boy I'm showing my age!) and he grabbed it and measured it at 5' 10" but I swear that thing tensed up at least a foot and a half from when it was out in nature all relaxed. It didn't even move or rattle until I grabbed it with my tongs, and I thought at first it might be dead! Had fourteen rattles and a head, no lie, as big as my hand. As to my other question, do you find Coachwhips? I think they are rarer than Indigos, what's your opinion on this?
