Saturday, August 16th I decided to hike some local areas to see what was around, spent the day in the Mission Gorge area of San Diego, walked about 12 miles of trail with some success, in the morning I came across this nice Southern Pacific Rattlesnake:
It was quite stunning actually, sorry that the pictures don’t show it but it had a greenish glow to it, appeared to have just shed and was quite fat, another very docile individual that wanted nothing more than to put distance between me and him.
A short while later I came across another one that was the exact opposite in terms of disposition! I should say that I didn’t actually see this one, he saw me. I was walking a trail when all of a sudden I heard the buzz, very loud and coming from some tall grass, I carefully walked toward the sound and found him, nice 3+ foot Southern Pacific and he was not very happy, he immediately struck on seeing me approach and did so repeatedly, not sure if something else had ticked him off before I got there but he was very agitated about something, stood his ground which made it hard to get a camera shot as he was in tall weeds and I couldn’t get them apart, finally he made a move, kept buzzing but got to an opening where I was able to get one shot before he took off, full throttle. Here’s Mr. Grumpy:
Here’s what the area looks like in terms of habitat:
Saw many Sceloporus and Uta, they were everywhere. Also came across two Orange Throated Whiptails (Cnemidophorus hyperythrus beldingi) which would have nothing to do with the camera however it was good to see them, their habitat has been declining rapidly in the area and I don’t see many of them any more, quite a beautiful lizard! Also ran into a Two-striped Garter Snake (Thamnophis hammondii) that made a quick dash under a very large boulder never to been seen by me again on this day.
Here’s one of the most common lizards in the area, Uta stansburiana elegans:
Final herp of the day was, believe it or not, sitting in the shade under the front tire of my truck, probably should have just stayed there all day and waited for the herps to come to me, it was a nice (grumpy) San Diego Alligator Lizard (Elgaria multicarinata webbii):
CONTINUED….
