Rattlesnakes in trees?

deevo said:
They have been known to climb up some trees here in Canada also, we only have one kind of rattlesnake in Ontario, I almost stepped on this guy last year I had my ear muffs down, went around the corner to water the flowers and heard the rattle!
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That was one of my favorite things about living here, no animals that can kill me. Then they found those little cuties in the Niagara Gorge. Not endangered enough for my liking!
 
I think that's probably a faked video. The size of the snake is too large compared to the size of the tree and the size and strength of the foliage it's supported by. A snake that big would weigh enough to sink into the foliage quite a bit. Snakes would climb to find something to eat, but there's not much chance any birds or squirrels would be nesting in the very top of a tall tree. I'm not buying it.

My older brother collected poisonous snakes when we were teenagers, and he had several rattlesnakes more than five feet long. I would help catch them, but he was the one who handled them. He even milked them for the venom. We would set traps all over the place and/or follow the tractors mowing the fields to catch mice to feed them.
 
Cool! Encountering a rattlesnake or box turtle is one of the greatest joys of the forest.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the odd one in a tree, but seeing one in the upper canopy would be strange. I wonder if here in the eastern US, where tree hollows are such important bat habitat, if that might tempt the occasional timer rattler upwards. Regardless, I'd like to see a box turtle get up there.

I've only seen one this year, beautiful dark phase with a long rattle.
 

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Never seen a snake in a tree, but I found one between my feet years ago. I was bushwhacking the lawn at my grandfather’s cabin with a big Stihl brush cutter, and looked down after I swung through a swath of weeds to see a timber rattler right between my boots looking as surprised as I was. He went one way and I went the other in a pretty good hurry.
 
cerviarborist said:
The snake in the video may well have been chased up the tree by another predator. They're not crazy about climbing, but they're less crazy about being eaten.
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There are few animals that will mess with a six foot rattlesnake. Even skinny snakes climb too slowly to make it a good way to avoid predators. A heavy-bodied snake like a rattlesnake would be very slow, and would likely fall off if it did not reach a limb in less than it's length off the ground.
 
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If there weren't predators willing to take on rattlesnakes, we'd be up to our earlobes in them. eagles, hawks, owls, falcons, feral pigs, badgers, indigo snakes, and kingsnakes are all documented predators of adult rattlesnakes. And just as a chunky climber like myself will use multiple points of attachment to spread the load among skinny branches in a tree canopy, snakes can do the same. Granted it's not something you see every day, Rattlesnakes are pit vipers and know you're coming long before you know they're there, and tend to softly and silently vanish away when they can. It's only when their avenues of escape are limited that they tend to be seen out in the open.
 
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