I took a friend of mine out in the field for his first time of night driving. We started out in Palm Springs, this was on 5-25, and it was WAY TOO Hot at 9pm. Conferring with my compatriot my thoughts on the temps we decided to head out to Pioneer town and Morongo Valley to see if it was a little cooler. We arrived at Morongo around 11pm (having filled up the gas tank and eaten) and it still seemed a little toasty. We did a few tours of Morongo and started seeing geckos around 11:30. By midnight it was still warm and my partner was mentioning the fact that he had to be up at 3:30 to get to work (You construction guys wake up WAY too early!) so we said we would do a tour of Whitewater and Verbenia on the way home and call it a night.
Got to Whitewater around 12:45 and met up with someone who I'd seen at Whitewater the previous year. Seems like a cool person and he and his kid are real enthusiastic about the herps. We quickly discussed what we had and hadn't seen that night before parting in opposite directions. The conversation in the truck turned to what does and doesn't live on Whitewater road and specifically about rattlesnakes. I happened to mention that in all the years and trips I've made to this road I'd never seen a speckled rattlesnake here, though I'd heard reports of them. Not any sooner did those words get out of my mouth when I had to say, "SNAKE IN THE ROAD". I hopped out of the cab and low and behold, a speckled right there on the road. Perfect Timing!
The speck took up the defensive and coiled in the middle of the road. While walking up to the snake I noticed a DOR mouse about 5 feet from the speck that didn't look as if it was suffering from Goodyear disease (i.e. it was not splattered). Using my hook I slowly moved the mouse up to the specks face and after a couple of moments the snake started nosing the mouse around looking for an end. I was pretty impressed, just as the snake found the head he just opened up and chowed down on the vermin. My buddy had his digital camera so I popped off a few shots of the snake chowing down on the road before I bagged it. I decided to take the snake home for a few days to show another friend who is interested in Speckleds and had never seen one from this local. Five days later the speck was back on the road and photographed again without his mouth full (and with a better camera).
