Deer Canyon Folks.org

So, to follow-up on Thursday’s photo essay:

The rattler stayed underneath the bird feeder tree all day Thursday. He moved elsewhere sometime during the night.

Friday late afternoon we were returning home, and I noticed that the scrub jays were all congregated in another tree, on the other side of the “yard”, and were squawking up a storm. I mentioned it to Alan, who investigated. And yes: there was our friendly rattlesnake, just curled up and minding its own business.

Yesterday evening we came home from the (best ever!) Sunflower Festival. I watched carefully for the rattlesnake all the way up the walkway and stairs into my front garden. Then somehow, just 10 feet from the porch, I forgot about snakes and started dreaming about all the wonderful things I purchased at the Festival. Just as I was about to climb the first step to our porch there was a loud hiss. There he was, curled up on the step, darting his black tongue at me. He didn’t strike or move at all, except for the hiss and the tongue. I went the long way around to the front door and told Alan that the rattler had moved to the front step.

This was completely unacceptable! Of course!

As we considered what to do, I remembered that I'd been told of one of the local men who will pick up rattlesnakes (no, not with his hands, with a snake-picker-upper; very technical term, that!) and take them away. (He has a bucket that latches for the purpose of transporting the snake; somehow it looks just like the one from Ghostbusters.) He keeps a snake pit and supplies the movie industry with snakes when they need them. Who knew?! So we called him and he came out and got our western diamondback.

But wait, there was yet another adventure to be had! The rattler moved from the step and we thought he had gone under the porch. Turned out he had just hid under one of the chocolate flower plants, barely off the path to the porch. Steve the snake wrangler walked past the rattler twice before he realized it was there under the plant. He could have been bit at any time, but our would-be resident really was quite peaceable.

After Mr Rattler departed to chase his fame and fortune in the movie industry, we reminded ourselves that there still can be a rattlesnake anywhere. And now we have a very clear picture of what anywhere means!

I'll post the snake wrangler’s name & number in the forum.

UPDATED TO ADD: snake wrangler info is posted in the Wildlife thread. And, I just want to emphasize: the rattlesnake never rattled! Well, once he was in the bucket he did, but not any of the times we almost walked up to/stepped on him. He didn’t even rattle when the wrangler picked him up (with the oh so technical snake-picker-upper). So we can’t count on hearing them rattle. I am very grateful that he at least deigned to hiss at me before I stepped on him!

Don’t you just love how curled up and happy he is? This snake never moved while we were discussing & photographing him. Of course, we stayed a respectful distance away. But Alan, who had been on his way to refill the feeders, couldn’t see him on the approach. Once again, some sense of something stopped Alan before he walked right up to the rattler. And somehow I doubt Mr. Snake would have remained so serene if Alan had got all the way there.

Moral of the story: be aware. It’s always a good idea anyway! And in our lovely environment here, a lack of awareness can seriously mess up your day. (And we have been having a weird day already, so we are both very glad Alan was awake!)

Click to embiggen. This of course is what we see as we come up to the tree to refill the bird feeders. We know a snake frequently comes up out of the hole near the tree on the left. But see how dappled the light is? Remember how dappled rattlesnakes look? Okay, now try the next page!

It just started raining, and I hope it keeps it up. For the past two weeks we’ve had no rain worth mentioning. A couple of times it rained for a few minutes, once we got all the way up to 5/100s of an inch. Like I said, nothing worth mentioning. So rain now would be very appreciated.

We had some different birds visiting our western ironweed a week ago. My first ID attempt went in the direction of orange–crowned warblers, but the birds were much bigger than the 5" those warblers are supposed to be. So now I’m leaning toward female Scott’s orioles. Yellow underneath, gray on top, 9" — seems like a better identification. The orioles were sitting on the ironweed and getting nectar from the flowers. Interestingly, the hummingbirds don’t generally feed at the ironweed, but they do use it as a banco!

I’ve been scolded (I won’t name names, but you know who you are!) so I’ll try to be a touch more regular with my posts. I hope you are all having a lovely summer. We are.