Quote:
Originally Posted by ausastronomer
Ha, tricked y'all. The 15" scope wasn't the real excitement at Comanche Springs. The sequence of events I describe below were 
To be continued after the photograph |
Ain't that little snake pretty
Just prior to taking that shot Larry Smith asked me if I wanted him to move it out from under the bush. I said, "no I can get a great shot from here." Keep in mind that my camera was about 1 foot from the snake when I took that photograph with the 18 - 55mm zoom lens, I had borrowed from Andrew Catsaitis (Rocket Boy). When the shutter went off, the snake which was facing away from me, struck at me (or the camera) and missed by a couple of centimetres. The snake repositioned itself after striking and missing and settled in a slightly different position. When it settled I could clearly see the end of its tail, which I could not see, before taking the shot. I said to Larry, "Larry it's got a rattle on its tail". He took a closer look and said, "oops, I am gonna need to wear my glasses when I am out here in future". The snake then took fright at us and dissappeared under the fence. I attach another shot of it slithering under the fence. Please excuse me for not taking the time or having the courtesy of focusing properly at this time for all you people back home
Of course the pretty little snake happens to be a Western Rattlesnake.
Edit: When one of the local Texans (Dink Wilson) identified the snake he called it a "Western Rattler". Not knowing much about them, I automatically assumed this to mean "Western Diamond Back Rattler". Dink later explained that this snake is not a diamond back and is one of several species that come under the family of western rattlers. He said it is what's known as a "prairie rattler" and looks almost identical to a bull or gopher snake. He said they are not common in this area and he could understand how Larry thought it was a Bull snake. He admitted that when he first saw my photograph he also thought it was a Bull Snake. When I told him it had a "rattle" he knew it was a Western Rattler or "Prairie rattler". There are several sub-species of these depending on location but they are all very similar, including Desert Massasauga and Hopi rattlesnake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C...is_nuntius.jpg
Here is a link to some photographs of a Bull or Gopher Snake
http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washin...er-snakes.aspx
It's very easy to see how Larry mistook the identity and how lucky we both were, as he had offered to pick it up and move it for me to photograph.