A few days ago, my wife and I went for a short walk through the Sagebrush desert of Southwestern Colorado. She was riding Leo, her BLM Mustang. I was walking with our faithful hound Jack on a leash. The weeds and grasses along the edge of the trail were tall and dry. The path was partly obscured by dried grasses, so I was very fortunate to see the young Prairie Rattlesnake coiled on the path.
It was a beautiful little snake, probably ten inches long or so. When I leaned down to look at it, I could hear the just faintest high-pitch buzz coming from its rattle, which only had two buttons on it. It sounded like a distant cicada singing.
At the time , I assumed this was a newborn snake. As I look at the photos now, I think is was a bit older than that. It had two buttons on its rattle, meaning it had been through at least two sheds. Also, my photos show a bulge in its midsection, suggesting that it’s had at least one meal. But I doubt that it was born too long ago – it’s probably a young-of-the-year.
It was small enough that even if I’d stepped on it, I don’t think it could have bitten through my boot, and perhaps not my trousers. But it certainly could have bitten Jack the Hound, or Leo. So fortune smiled on us twice, once for seeing this beautiful little snake, and again for neither Jack nor Leo getting bitten.
Here’s the interesting part of the story (finally!). We continued to walk our loop and returned to the horse trailer perhaps twenty minutes later, As Laurie was taking the tack off of Leo, I walked back down the trail to where we’d seen the young Rattlesnake.
There was no Rattlesnake. But I did find a Gopher Snake in very nearly the same spot. It was crawling slowly on the trail.
I picked the Gopher Snake up for a photo. It was four or five feet long, and very calm. I set it back down and it crawled away through the weeds.
It was neat to watch – as the snake crawled away, the blotches and patterns on its back would blur and blend with the shadows cast by the dried weeds. It was as if the snake would magically disappear, then appear, then disappear again.
It’s not that common to find Gopher Snakes here when you’re just out walking around. Less so to find one within a half hour of finding a young Rattlesnake, in very nearly the same spot.
So I wonder – did this Gopher Snake eat the young Rattlesnake? Or did the Rattlesnake perhaps get away?
