An actual copperhead with its young. You’re not going to find these in your backyard.
By IAN McDOWELL, South Mendenhall Street
Newborn copperheads are 8-10 inches long and look much like mature copperheads except for their greenish or yellow tails, which they may use to attract lizards, and which lose that coloration after the first year. Other than that tail, their coloration is more grayish than that of their tan or coppery parents. Even at birth (females don’t lay eggs), juveniles have thicker bodies, larger heads and thinner necks than any other local snake that size. Their heads generally have the same distinctive triangular “adder” shape as adults.
A snake less than 8 inches long is almost certainly not a copperhead. Any snake less than 11 inches long without a greenish or yellow tip on its tail is unlikely to be a copperhead (copperheads lose that tail coloration after the first year).
There was a gigantic red oak tree that towered over Paul and Barbara Phillips’ house at 805 Rankin Place. The house was built in 1910, and the tree probably was there then. By last fall, it was clear that the tree’s health was failing, and it had to come down.
Longtime College Hill resident Jim Clark died Monday. He was 72. He had suffered a severe heart attack last spring. Jim and his wife, Daniele, had lived on Carr Street since 1980 and raised their two children, Stefan and Josie, there. They moved to Westerwood after Jim’s heart attack to be closer to their daughter.
