We were out camping at Lake Casitas this weekend and while we were setting up camp I heard the word snake get mentioned at the site next door as I noticed a couple of guys walking up to the bush line behind our camp. They had mentioned that it was a racer and that it took off into the bushes. I went back to my camp setup keeping an eye on the bushes. About ten minutes later I noticed a long, red skinny object moving in the grass near the bushes. I snuck over and right away discovered that the racer was actually a 4ft Red Coachwhip. It appeared to be on patrol for one of the many baby ground squirrels that we had all about the area. I waited for him to poke his head into one of the burrows that he was hunting in and quickly snatched him up.







The next evening the coachwhip was back out and we were watching him from our shade treen near the bush line. He seemed to be sitting with his head poking out to the edge of the bush line in hopes to ambush a young weary squirrel. After a while I also notice this small pencil sized black and white banded thing moving about in the bushes about a foot off of the ground. I couldn't recall much of the coachwhip having that coloration on it so I decided to take a closer look and to my surprise I had found my first ever California Kingsnake. It was in the act of striking in the coachwhip's direction when I walked up. It was probably trying to scare the coachwhip away, but I think he may have been in the process of becoming a meal for the coach if I hadn't walked up.



We herped the campgrounds all that morning, but no snakes found...best spot appeared to be our campsite from about 3pm on. We also got a pic of some California Valley Quail on our way back home.

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