Sometimes it's hard to figure out when creatures that hibernate actually hibernate.
Snakes, for instance, seem to be everywhere from Labor Day to mid-October, and then they are presumed to be dormant.
That's not always the case, though. Last Monday, we noticed a fat timber rattler sprawled across a road near our deer camp.
Admittedly, it was warm outside, and the snake seemed drawn to the sun-baked asphalt.
I e-mailed one of my favorite snake experts: research scientist J.D. Willson over at Savannah River Ecology Lab.
Shouldn't the snakes be hibernating by now? He replied that snakes are more reactive to specific cold weather, rather than a change of seasons. "It depends on the winter, but most should be heading in soon," he said.
Snakes do not actually hibernate, but rather they become less active during cold weather. It is called "brumation," rather than "hibernation."
Rattlesnakes, in particular, are known to move around during extended warm periods of the winter months, Willson said.
"One of our colleagues, Kimberly Andrews, has tracked lots of rattlesnakes on the coast near Beaufort and many of them stay fairly active all winter," he said. "Around Aiken, they usually hibernate in stump holes, but will come out during warm spells."
So until we get a few more frosty mornings, watch where you walk in the woods.
AIR RAIDS: We sometimes keep my mother-in-law's yorkie when she is out of town, and I joke about one of the neighborhood hawks or owls carrying her off from our yard.
I'm just joking, of course. If something happened to that little dog, I'd be in big trouble. Apparently, though, that sort of thing really does happen.
One of our readers, Carter Hampton, called last week to share an unusual event he witnessed while driving along Cambridge Road involving a hawk and a gray tabby cat.
"I was on Cambridge about a block north of Sussex," he said. "The hawk was carrying the cat and my impression was the cat was so heavy he could hardly fly."
The bird landed in a tree to eat his kill, and all Hampton could see was the cat's tail. "It wasn't moving."
He honked his horn to distract the bird, but there was little that could be done to save the cat.
By coincidence, I got an e-mail the same day from my friend Larry Millen, who had photographed a huge bird of prey roosting on a wooden fence near his home off Lake Forest Drive.
He thought it might have been an eagle. The bird was certainly huge, but the photo was too grainy to provide a positive identification.
RISING WATER: Years of intermittent drought left many tributaries of Thurmond Lake overgrown with saplings and underbrush. Now it's more like a swamp.
Last week's torrential rains pushed the lake to its highest levels since 1998 with an expected crest of more than 334 feet above sea level sometime today.
That's a full 4 feet above the lake's regular full pool of 330 -- and homeowners were scrambling last week to tighten boardwalks and docks that could be floated off their moorings.
The Corps of Engineers hopes to begin lowering the lake early this week, after the lower Savannah River has dissipated all the recent rainfall that fell below the dam.
Ironically, the low point for 2008 occurred exactly a year ago this week, when the pool fell to 313.68 -- the third-lowest level recorded since detailed record-keeping began in 1962.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
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