Diamondback

We went to western Oklahoma last weekend to photograph prairie chickens and learned there was a diamondback den right behind the bunkhouse we were staying in. So naturally I want to check it out. Once we get over there, I immediately get a butterfly feeling in my stomach. Snakes interest me a lot, yet I'm scared as heck of them. We have a weird relationship.

On the way to the hill there is sagebrush everywhere. If you're not familiar with sagebrush, it's about 3 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. There was only about 2 feet in between each sagebrush plant, which means, take a step, check under each sagebrush plant for a snake, take another step. Needless to say, it took a few minutes to get to the actual base of the gypsum hills. Once we got there it was like oh wow, we are right next to a ton of rocks of which there is a diamondback rattlesnake den, somewhere. So I was scanning every inch of the landscape before I took a step. We were on our way up the steep, rocky hill and were looking under all these huge rocks, everything looked like it could be a rattlesnake house.

Meanwhile, Adam is bent down looking under rocks and stands up and says "oh there's one." Sitting 3 feet from him at eye level was this guy. He was on the side of the hill underneath a sagebrush plant next to a little grass. My stomach fell, I immediately thought, oh my gosh, we've been standing in this exact spot for several minutes and just now see this snake... oh crap, what if there's one right by my feet, or right behind me or or or or. So naturally I scanned the area I was standing in, no snakes. Ok, I can start taking pictures.

We hiked up this really steep gypsum hill and found several dens, huge 10 feet diameter holes at the top of the gypsum hill. It was creepy, especially since the wind was blowing 50 mph, and we were standing on the top of this huge hill, on the edge of a diamondback rattlesnake den. Needless to say, that snake was the only one we found, however the lady who owns the ranch's son, had already caught about 30 and had them in a pit right next to the bunkhouse we were sleeping in. Which makes me think, we probably over looked about 5 million of those suckers.

Hope you have sweet dreams tonight!