Snakes in the Winter
I saw a big Texas Rat Snake just last month when I was walking in from the deerblind. He was sunning himself. It was a cold morning but he was down in the grass on a sunny spot on the edge of the pasture. Micro-climate. I'm sure his black skin was solar-collecting. He looked around for one second, then disappeared into a hole well-hidden in the leaves. He was the SECOND Texas Rat I had seen doing that, not on the same property.
Several years ago, on a morning that finally froze me out of my position watching a creek bottom for deer, I was walking out and saw a full-grown cottonmouth watermoccassin who "gaped" his mouth at me when I walked up. It was so cold I was shivering from the effects of blood circulating through cold arms and legs from sitting so long. I was freezing to death in long underwear, coat, hat, gloves, et - and here was this snake who pops his fangs out at me when I walk up.
I think he was doing the same thing- solar-collecting in a micro-climate. He was in the sun. HE creaked his way into a hole about the size of a 50 cent piece* and was gone. Took him a minute because HE was so dang cold.
November snakes, december snakes, january snakes. I believe it.
* Not to be confused with Lee Paige and "Fitty Cents" Glock "fowty".