Looks like a Georgia native to me. Thank heavens they're migrating north. I guess you'll take credit for that, too. If so, thanks.

A park ranger in LA County told us once that baby rattlesnakes are far more dangerous than the grown ones because they have enough venom to kill a man but they don't yet know when not to bother trying. Reminds me of why, if you're going to get robbed, you don't want it to be by teenagers.

Probably true, Martha. Venomous snakes calibrate the amount of venom injected: more for prey, generally less for defensive bites. Often defensive bites are dry bites: no venom at all.

Young snakes are also more dangerous to handle. It's easier to twist a small head around so a fang can reach you, as I learned from a juvenile palm viper in Malaysia years ago.

As for you, mfd, the snake in question is still in Georgia, where snakes belong. Well, there and in Florida and South Carolina. We up here suffer from a deplorable paucity of serpents.