Should I be worried?

[stephanbakir]

When I was 12 I lucked out big time, one winter exploring some caves close to my home I found a winter snake nest.

It was huge, compared to the two that I later found. Every year I would go back with my cousin and just take a look around christmas, then later in march and then again once everything starts to melt and over the years we found tons of garter snakes, ring necks, red belly grass snakes, and the odd northern water snake/pine snake. The nest normally contained 75-125 snakes (its really hard to count considering that its cramped and they are kind of all over eachother.)

About 4 years ago I went on vacation for 2 months and when I came back, the two smaller nests (they only hold about 25-50 tops) had been plowed down and flattened to make what would later become my neighbors house.

Anyway, after that we still went to look at the bigger remaining nest and things went fine for a few years, last X-mas we went to look at it and counted 83 snakes, mostly garters, 7 pine snakes! and one which honestly looked like a milk snake(I have never seen one of those here, and im not sure what to make of it)

I went to check on it an hour ago and what I found honestly worried me, FRESH snake tracks leaving the nest, lots of them. When i went inside for a look i only found 16 snakes. Garters 2 pine snakes and that wierd looking milk snake.

It hasnt dropped below zero in ages, and there is about 2 feet of snow outside where the nest is... What could have caused them to leave... This has never happened at any nest that I have found in the 10 years I have been "guarding" them. Besides my cousin and I, only one person knows the location of this nest and we all know the importance of keeping it a secret from most people. I know as a fact that they didnt show anyone the nest, and im a pretty good trapper/tracker and I didnt see any animal sign in the area other then the odd rabbit track.

Any information that you have would be great, im a little worried to say the least, I use the same northern water snake every year for my "ottawa river keepers" presentation at the folk festival (hes wild I just know where to find the old guy (almost 5 feet long and so gentle I had one kid manhandle him to the point where I needed to take him to a vet and he never hinted that he was going to bite.!)) and hes one of the ones whos missing from the nest.

I wish I had more time to look into this but I leave for my vacation late tomorow but as soon as I get back I hope to get to the bottom of this.