Went to a local park today to try a new-to-me camera lens. Its south texas so theres rattlesnakes everywhere as it is, but right now theyre extremely active with all the heat we’ve been having lately.
About thirty minutes after I took this photo, I actually came across a diamondback while out wandering some trails nearby the park I took the title photo at. I was walking, saw it and heard it at the same time. I stood there and watched it for about 10 seconds before it started to take off into the nearby brush and for a few seconds I totally forgot I had a camera in my hand I was so intent on just watching it. This is it, slinking back off into the brush. If you zoom in, you can see 7 rattles, so the snake is about 7 years old. It was bigger around than my wrist, about the size of 2” pipe at the widest part of it, and maybe 3 or 3-1/2 foot long. Not the biggest one I have seen, some of them get longer than I am tall, but this one is still big enough to wreck your day if you tried to do anything more than steer clear of it.
Meanwhile, it's all I can do to keep our puppy from messing with the brood of garter snakes that have taken up residence under our deck. We are 100% screwed if rattlesnakes make it this far into town, which they normally don't, but with a new Once In a Lifetime Weather Event™️ every goddamned week, who knows.
As for the garter snakes, they range from a few smaller ones that must have hatched either this year or last year, and then a couple of older adults in the 2 1/2 to 3 foot range that have been here for years and seem to delight in terrorizing the UPS guy [edit: by basking. Menacingly. And existing in general. Duder might just have a phobia, really.]. Generally, we leave them alone and they leave us alone, but there have been one or two occasions where one got up on the deck steps and we didn't see it in time while running the dog out. Yes, a garter snake will try to strike at you and/or your pet. No, they are not venomous, but those teeth aren't exactly dull or, you know, sanitary. No one has been bitten yet, at least; but that we're pretty sure it was the same snake both times. If so, that one snake is weirdly brave.