She is young. We got her in Sept 07 and she was supposed to be about 6 or 8 weeks old at the time. So that should make her about 6 months old.

I guess I can't say for sure that her mouth was open. They move so fast when they strike, and it didn't occur to me to try to notice if her mouth was open or closed. But I definitely interpreted them as feeding strikes; I didn't notice anything different about the way she was striking, other than the part about missing of course!

I think the mouse was hot enough. I used the same method I always do: let the mouse thaw at room temperature until it is still cool but there are no longer any hard frozen places (which also pre-scents the room), then heat it under a heat lamp for maybe a minute, with the last 10-15 seconds aimed directly at the head.

She wasn't aiming at my hand, that's for sure. I was using the same tongs as usual but I suppose it is possible my angle was different. Maybe if my hand was behind the mouse from her, it could have confused the heat signature?

She did finally strike the mouse and from there everything went like normal. Constrict to kill the dead mouse, then swallowed it. It just seemed wierd that she'd be so consistent about always getting it on the first strike then have one feeding with so many misses. Are BPs like human athletes? One miss can throw off their confidence and mess up the whole game?

If it makes any difference, it wasn't like BAM-BAM-BAM. There were pauses between each strike. Actually after I think the third miss, it was a long enough pause that I began to wonder if she was now going to refuse the mouse, although she was watching it and looking interested the whole time, but she usually strikes pretty quick. Then after that long pause was when she struck successfully. So maybe she just needed to regroup herself or something.