Just wanted to share some recent field herping finds...
We went out on monday to a spot off of Sycamore in vista/ carlsbad and found nothing all day. We were flipping boards, rocks, etc. On the way back to the car, on the trail about 100 yds in front of us a big So. Pacific Rattlesnake, it was a foot race to get to it first. She was approx. 3.5 ft and definatly ate recently. We took many pics and boy, she was defintaly not happy, when we had our shots (photos that is) we made sure to get her off the trail and ended it with that!
Tuesday we went to Los penisquitos to some some ghetto park w/ trails in the middle of a town, there was definatly a feel of snakes around but we turned up empty handed (well besides for the thousands of alligator lizards that we caught, we just stopped counting!
Wednesday (today) We went out to our favorite little canyon in carlsbad. The second we got there we looked at each other and we knew we were definatly finding something today! we hiked for about an hour on the trail to travl deep into the canyon, my friend Ryan yelled just as I was climbing over a boulder "GOPHER", I immediatly lunged in the direction of the snake but to our dissapointment he was able to scurry into some pretty thick brush and into a hole. We were definatly not about to ruin the poor fellows spot and possibly hurt him just to catch him so we took it as being out smarted and moved on. we were pretty bummed because it started to cool down and began to see less lizards etc. we headed back to the car. It was just about the last large rock on the path and ryan said, "what do ya think, flip it?" it was a pretty heavy rock and i was almost convinced we ere gonna get skunked that day so I said, "no, forget it." He then just told me "please just help me lift it", I helped hold up one side of te rock and he lifted, to our surprise, there was a 3.5-4 ft. gopher snake (san diego, I think?) just coiled up under a rock with about a 2ft. circumfrance. I immediatly grabbed the snake before I even reacted because I was so excited! Let me tell you i have seen several gophers all over san diego county but this was hands down the prettiest gopher snake i hve EVER seen as well as my friend ryan, who's idea it was to flip the rock in he first place. well, we took smepics and let it go, but i do not think he is going to be going back under that rock for a while. Just thought it would be nice to let you know iour HERP season has definatly arrived! Jon
