Ridgenose by Ear (continued)

 


Stop, poke and listen

 


Right here!

 


Shooting the Ridgenose in its crevice.


 

Jeff didn't have a snake hook, either - just a long, slender staff.  The earth-end got poked into rock piles and crevices.  "I just poke my stick into holes, and listen for a rattle," said Jeff. 

Well, you don't have to tell me more than twice.  I wasn't having any luck bending, squatting, and peering - time to make like the natives.  There were lots of places to try out this technique.  Jeff indicated that this place was also a good location for the little Banded Rock Rattler, Crotalus lepidus klauberi.  Wouldn't that be something to see too!

I was a fair distance up one steep canyon side, and had only been doing the 'stop, poke, and listen'  techniques for a few minutes, when I actually heard it - a faint, high-pitched buzzing!  Crouching down, I could faintly see white stripes on a snake face back in a dark crevice - I knew what it was.  It was the face of a dream thirty years old.  Crotalus willardi willardi. You could have heard me miles away!  It was a good-sized adult, maybe twenty inches in length.


A thirty year old dream is realized

The other fellows came up in a hurry.  We set up to take photographs.  We wanted to shoot the snake in place without handling it or dragging it out into the hot sun, but to do so, we had to pull back the top rock that capped the crevice.  At this point Jeff gave us a valuable lesson.  "You've just broken the moisture barrier by lifting that rock - any humidity trapped under there will evaporate."  This was something we'd never had to worry about back in the rain-blessed Midwest, but here it was a real concern.  A lot of living creatures, including the Ridgenose, depended on these slightly moist, shaded microhabitats.  When we finished the photo shoot, we carefully replaced the top rock as it was found, and replaced the lost humidity with a liberal portion of spring water from my knapsack.

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