This northern redbelly snake refused to show me his attractive red belly. Rather than trying to catch him and flip him over – he’s not at all harmful – I decided to take this portrait and the genre photo below before he slithered quickly away.
Redbellies (Storeria occipitomaculata) are small snakes that live on earthworms and little crawlies. This one was about 8 inches long. They give birth to live young in September and also begin now to check out potential winter dormancy shelters, such as rock crevices, stone walls, rodent burrows, and large ant mounds.
They frequently drowse with other redbellies in a “hibernacula” (winter tent or winter quarters in Latin). Sometimes well over a hundred redbellies will form an interwoven mass of lethargic bodies in winter quarters.
As you may know, snakes and other cold-blooded animals that have no internal thermostats don’t hibernate like mammals when the temperatures drop and warming sunlight is less frequent. They enter a drowsy state called brumation and may wake and explore their surroundings from time to time during the winter.
(Images taken in Brooklin on September 21, 2026. Sex assumed.)