Night ride 4

9/19/2010

So I went out for another night ride on my bike looking for critters. And I must say I had a very successful evening. I was driving down Bush Hwy along the Salt River when I saw something in the road. I turned back and found this baby Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnake. Very tiny. So I grabbed a stick and moved him off the side of the road. I continued on and soon came across another small snake on the shoulder. I took a picture or two before I realized it was a Mojave Rattlesnake. Now I've briefly mentioned this before, but there are about four ways you can tell the difference between a Diamond-backed and a Mojave. I know most people could care less but for those who find this interesting, here it is. The Diamond-backed is pictured above and the Mojave below. 

1. Look at the tail: They both have black and white stripes, yes, but there is a difference. The Western has roughly the same sized black and white stripes while the Mojave has smaller black stripes. Still, this can be difficult to determine by itself. 

2. Look at the head: They both have two stripes on the side of their face. One in front of the eye and one behind. The eye stripe behind is the difference. On the Western, it is more vertical and crosses the lip. On the Mojave it slants more and does not cross the lip. You can tell in the picture of the Mojave very well that this is the case. Look further in the post for the larger picture of a Western to see this feature better. 

3. Look to the Diamonds: Now it is true that they both have diamonds. Odd that only the Western is called the Diamond-backed. But if you look at the coloration of the diamonds, the Western has a "salt and pepper" look to it. The scales seem to be dark and light. In the Mojave they are a more solid color. I agree, this is not the easiest way to determine the species. 

4. Look back to the head: This one requires you to be the closest to the snakes head, which is why I don't recommend it as a determining factor. But if it's dead or something and you are checking, look at the scales on the top of the head from the eyes back. The Western DB has very small scales covering the entire head up until the eyes where it still has several scales at least between the eyes (or the supraoculars (scales above the eyes)). The Mojave has a plate like scales from its eyes back to the middle of the head. So the scales are much larger and therefore fewer in number. (Information expanded upon from my book A Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles in Arizona).

I continued riding and went up to Usery Park and back. On the way back I stopped for a snake. It was a baby Gopher snake DOR unfortunately. My next stop was the Salt River parking lot by the bridge. I walked down to the river and saw what I call the Wild Horses of the Salt River. There were 6 of them including two colts that I haven't seen before. I decided to cross the bridge and hike down closer to them on the other side of the river. In total I saw between 6 to 8 skunks from the river to the parking lot. I drove across and parked and was about to place my hand down to jump over the concrete walkway railing when I saw a bark scorpion where my had was about to be placed. 

As I was making my way down to the river I kept seeing the kangaroo rats everywhere--really small ones too. As I was walking between two large trees I heard one on the right so I was looking at it and heard another one to the right. As I turned I realized it was actually a large Western DB! I took these pictures and then, as I had been wanting to taste rattlesnake, I killed it (sparing you the details). It was still moving for quite a while without the head as the muscles loosen up. So jumping ahead, I skinned it at home and prepared it for eating the next day. From an article I read, I put it in the freezer covered in salt water. This morning I thawed it out and then marinated it in Teriyaki sauce. Then this evening I grilled them and they were...quite delicious. Much better than I had imagined. Even my mom, who thought they wouldn't taste good at all, liked it. I searched for recipes but ended up just mixing a few together and it turned out well. You can find some videos on Youtube that show you how to skin them. Next time I want to tan the skin too. We'll see. And maybe make my own video showing how to skin them. 

I made my way down closer to the horses and as I was shining my light I saw a bunch of eyes at water level moving around. As I got closer I realized they were raccoons. A whole family. I never would have thought I'd see them right down at the Salt River. But there they were just fishing in the night. The horses were right behind them on a small "island" of grass. On my way home I stopped by the place where I had seen the Mojave and sure enough he had decided to cross and got run over. But I was able to get a closer look at the features that distinguish it from the Western DB such as the plates on his head. 

Evening Finds 4

9/15/2010

Let's see...13 snakes in 2 hours. That is how our night went. It started off with dove hunting as usual, though dove season just ended so no more of that for a while. As the last two shots were made by my brother before we called it quits, as the sun was going down, the snakes came out. My brother was reaching down to pick up his shell when all of a sudden he reached back and said, "Snake!" It was a baby Diamond-backed rattlesnake! (See above). Less than a foot long and maybe as thick as a dime. The snake quickly scurried back into his hole. (Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so we took pictures and videos with our phones but they aren't very good. So I apologize for the poor quality). I headed on over to grab my backpack from where I set it down earlier, and saw another rattlesnake coiled up by his hole. Then right near my pack I saw another rattlesnake. All the same size, probably just born this summer. Going back to meet my brother I saw the same one coiled outside his hole and then just past that my brother saw another one and then another one. Five baby rattlers in all within about 20 minutes of looking and not looking. 

We continued to look. I found and injured a small lizard and we tried to feed it to a snake but it was only interested in getting away from us and back in its hole. Then I saw a Long-nosed snake in its red splotchy phase, but it went down into a hole. I put a bone next to the bush so we could look later. Then my brother yells that he found a larger rattler (See right). So I went over and it was still a young snake but much larger than the babies. Then I noticed it might be a Mojave so we checked a few features on it and decided it was. We tried to feed the lizard to it by pushing it toward the snake with a stick but the snake just struck the stick and then we let it go on its way. We decided we'd make a loop to the water hole and back and keep looking. Shortly after heading over there, we were walking and I looked down and noticed that my brother had stepped right next to a coiled up Diamond-backed rattler about the same size as the Mojave. He didn't rattle or anything. But then we prodded him into a nearby Creosote bush. We split up and kept moving. I came across another DB rattler and then saw what looked to be a dead snake or lizard in a bush. So I got a stick and poked it and dust flew off it and it ran off. It was a huge Desert Spiny Lizard. Much larger than a quarter in diameter. 

We met up again at the water hole where we had fed the DB a week before in its den. My brother didn't find the snake but at the bottom of the den he found and retrieved two baby snake sheds. Going around the corner to where we had camped before, we saw a Sonoran Desert Toad, Woodhouse's Toad, and another coiled up DB rattlesnake. As of this time that was 9 rattlesnakes and a Long-nosed snake. On this trip we were planning on catching a Desert Banded Gecko to bring home as a pet and had seen quite a few but not as big as we had wanted. Soon after that I caught a decent sized one and we started the walk out. We soon came across another Long-nosed snake of the same coloration and a larger size (See above). I grabbed it before it made it into a hole and we took some pictures of it and then tried feeding the dead lizard we had gotten earlier to it. He grabbed it, coiled up and ate it! We let him go down a hole and then found another small gecko. The snake was coming back out so we tried feeding it again. Normally we wouldn't feed snakes geckos because they are cooler but we had seen like 15 or so in the last hour. The snake didn't seem interested so it moved to the base of another bush. As it did this another snake, a baby Gopher snake, came out of the bush (See below). The Long-nosed snake then snatched the gecko very quickly and ate it. It was such a docile snake and very pretty. We continued on. 

We got back to where the baby rattlesnakes were and grabbed our packs. Then I was showing my brother where I had seen the other Long-nosed snake and sure enough, there he was heading back to the same bush. I quickly grabbed him and we tried to feed him a small gecko we had just found as well but he wouldn't take. Instead the gecko ran into a very small hole and we left as the snake followed. Right after that we saw our last snake of the night. Another baby Gopher snake heading down a hole. Just a little bigger than the previous Gopher but still very tiny and skinny. Well that just about wraps up the evening. A crazy night of snakes all in about 2.5 hours. We will definitely be checking that place some more. We would really enjoy a Long-nosed snake as a pet but we'll see. 

Evening Finds 3

9/12/2010

As we are walking to and nearing the water hole that we like to shoot near for another evening of dove hunting, I noticed something, which I thought to be a Spiny Lizard, poking its head out of a nearby hole under a Creosote bush. I walked closer and saw it was a snake head! Most likely a rattlesnake from the looks of it. I found a stick and nudged him out, which is when he started rattling a little, but he came out and curled up at the base of the bush. From there we took pictures like the following. A beautiful pose in defensive position with its tongue out. We decided that this was a Mojave Rattlesnake. Due to its greenish coloration, smaller black stripes on its tail, eye stripes following the jaw-line, and the single palette. We let him be as we went along our way only to find other hunters at the water hole so we headed back to our next favorite spot. Upon doing so we looked back for the snake and it was gone. So we carefully looked in the surrounding bushes and finally heard it rattling as it was going down into a nearby pack-rat's nest, where we left it and started hunting. 

After finishing our hunting we broke out the UV flashlight that I had just bought to look for scorpions along with our normal flashlights for snakes and such. We quickly came across 3 or more very young scorpions of which species I'm not sure. But then after circling one creosote bush we saw what were were hoping to find--a Desert Hairy Scorpion. We wanted to catch one and keep it as a pet. The bigger scorpions just seem cooler! The following are a picture of it normal and then under the black light. Now tell me that isn't cool!

After seeing many more scorpions, including two more large hairy scorpions, we made it back to our car and headed home. On the same road that we previously saw the javelina and adult rattlesnake, we came across a baby rattler. Slightly smaller than the mojave found earlier, this was a Western Diamond-backed Rattler getting ready to cross the road. So we brought our BB gun out...and helped it off the road. Here he is in strike position after being startled by my brother's quick movement. Then just after that we saw a toad on the road. We shoed it along across the road and then I consulted with my handy guide book and saw it was a Woodhouse's Toad. 

P.S. 

    Pheww! All caught up with my adventures!! :)

Night ride 3

9/11/2010

So my other brother wanted to go out herping tonight so we took the car. We went driving down Bush Hwy again but nothing was out. We stopped where we had seen the Desert Hairy Scorpion before and looked around seeing a smaller Sun Spider and this little bird (pictured above). We got really close and my brother touched its tail feathers and then a little after it flew up into the tree above. After driving for a while we stopped to hike out where we had been quail hunting before. We walked for a while and didn't see anything but the very common kangaroo rat. But then finally I came across this little guy. So I yelled to my brother that I had found a baby king snake. So he rushes over but on his way over I picked it up and realized it was a Long-nosed snake. We handled him for just a bit and then let him go on his way. That was a very nice find. Only my second live Long-nosed snake I've ever seen. We headed back to the car after a little more hiking and then back home without anything else unusual. But the snake definitely made the trip. 

Evening Finds 2

9/09/2010

Another evening hunting but with an added twist--we were spending the night out there, looking for more snakes after hunting and then hunting again in the morning. So we made our way out, keeping a careful eye out for any snakes or other animals. Saw a few lizards darting back into holes as we walked by but nothing crazy. We checked out our rattlesnake den and sure enough he was still in there. After hunting the evening we got our flashlights out and went for a late evening walk looking for animals. We brought along a BB gun to try to get a kangaroo rat to try to feed to the rattlesnake. Very quickly we saw what we at first thought to be a kangaroo rat but turned out to be a large toad. After consulting my handy-dandy field guide book I found out it was a Sonoran Desert Toad. We found there to be a whole lot of young ones all around the water hole. We put a few down the rattlesnake den but he just rattled at them and let them be. We continued on and after a short walk we came across a Desert Banded Gecko. I do prefer them over the Mediterranean House Gecko that lives around your house in the city. 

We didn't find anything else even after a short drive up and down the road nearby. But we did manage to get a kangaroo rat and so we headed back to the rattlesnake den. I pushed the dead kangaroo rat into the den with a stick and the snake went right up to it and smelled it. Then I moved it a little bit more and the snake took it. Then we preceded to film it as you can see here.

After that amazing experience we were heading back to camp to sleep and came across another gecko. That finished out our night pretty well. The morning went by without any animal sitings but we had a good hunt as well.