Field herping: Photographing flighty snakes

[TrpnBils]

Something that has made me screw up otherwise good shots on several occasions while in the field is when a snake that has been recently uncovered decides it wants to A) Get away, or B) Take my face off. This is usually a problem with flightier species like garters and black rats up this way, and this technique that I read about last year sometime seems to do the trick.

If you can move the snake away from any potential hiding spots, do so. Then give him a hiding spot...such as a small flowerpot or something turned upside down. Sometimes they crawl inside, sometimes they don't, but when they do, they usually end up in a nice coil and calm down quite a bit once you uncover them again. It sets up perfectly for a good picture if you do it right.

 

[Menhir]

Leather gloves do a fantastic job.
I normally wear them to have a little protection against hidden vipers and so on...

 

[TrpnBils]

That's how I used to do it too, but I'm impatient and I hate having to wait for it to calm down. Now I just let the snake and the flowerpot do their respective things and I use my free time to set up my tripod, camera, etc.

There's no right or wrong way though, and no one way will work for every situation so just go with whatever happens to be working at the moment.