Another Rattler Story

I was spending a quiet afternoon inside my tent writing in my journal and waiting for my hiking partner to catch up. I caught a motion out of the corner of my eye and turned to spy the back portion of a rattle snake going by just 4 feet or so away. I've seen bigger by far - the ones on the Appalachian Trail easily reach 5 feet long and bigger through the middle than my wrist. But a rattler is a rattler and seeing one in the wild is always exciting. I moved to get a better look at it and the snake realized for the first time that I was nearby. Rattlers are not aggressive by nature though so it didn't coil and rattle at me, but rather it froze to assess the situation. I got out my camera and the snake started moving again. At one point it was only about 2 feet away. The photo is a bit grainy because I took it through the mesh in my tent, but here's the shot I took. You can see the edge of my tent in the upper part of the photo.

The following day I saw a rattler in the process of eating a bird. I hadn't seen so many snakes since the southern desert. It was surprised because I was traveling through a forested area and not in the open rocky desert where I was used to seeing rattlers.