It rained on the 26th. It’s a little early, and we really wanted to just get out of the house. I knew we wouldn’t see much, if anything, but a night out cruising with no snakes is always better than a boring and hot Thursday evening hiding inside from the sun.

The clouds and smoke made for a really nice bright sunset that gave the usually colorful Superstition Mountains a desaturated, grey-green color. It was a really nice drive.

Superstition mountains sunset

We did see a couple of young atrox out and about. This is the first one. The second was on a tight, blind curve with a cliff off to the side in an area where dumbasses regularily speed around corners without regard to which lane they’re in. He looked about the same as this one, so I just got out long enough to hurry it off the road.

Anyway… here’s the little guy. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t pay attention to the depth of field while photographing.

Crotalous atrox

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

We also found an adult Red-Spotted Toad (Bufo punctatus) out enjoying the bump in humidity from none to almost none. I remember I hiked near this area in October, 2006, and young punctatus absolutely covered the ground. I took some time to see how many I could stack on top of eachother from big to small.

Bufo punctatus

Red-Spotted Toad

… and this last picture isn’t any good, but I always think its funny when one of these ends up on the card when trying to photograph a toad. Position the shot, shoot, look in the viewfinder and I have a nice picture of empty dirt. Escape!

escape!

Thats it for now. Hopefully I’ll get up to the task of uploading pictures from a recent trip to Utah and a fairly unproductive trip down south in the ultra-dry air of May.

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I haven’t been herping in awhile now. It’s hot, dry, and my gas budget has gone to visiting old friends and an upcoming trip to see my parents in New Mexico. I did manage to find a couple of Great Basin Gopher Snakes (Pituophis catenifer deserticola) while driving through Utah, but that’s about it. With the dry air and expensive gas, it’s best for me to just wait for the rain. Maybe I’ll sort through some of the scenery and non-herp shots I’ve taken in the last few weeks and throw them up to fill in the gaps.

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The herping has been on pause these last few weeks. In late May, Kris and I had quite a trip down to the South East part of the state and really didn’t see much of anything. The air is extremely dry at this time of year, leaving a lot of reptiles in their holes until things become a little more favorable with the rains in late July or so. With gas so expensive, I’d rather just wait it out and then go crazy for a few weeks when I’m likely to see things.

Here’s a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake rescued awhile back from a home in Cave Creek. Nothing spectacular about this guy except how old it seemed. The tail was very long, and had broken off long ago, and was STILL one of the longest rattles I’d seen. He had a great temperment, and never struck or really rattled to speak of.

Crotalus atrox

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

Crotalus atrox

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