Boo! Hiss!

So there I was, standing in the dark by a large creosote bush in my front yard, getting ready to take a little walk around the neighborhood. A loud sound shot out from the corner of the yard, behind me. My heart skipped a beat, and for a millisecond I thought a piece of our ancient outdoor plumbing had failed and was spraying water. Another millisecond, and my heart stopped outright.

Rattlesnake.

I might have wet myself were I not already taking a leak. Hey, it's my yard, it's pretty wild and overgrown, and like I said, it was dark out.

Anyway, the buzz was coming from over 10 feet away, and I'm not sure why the snake felt threatened enough to rattle at me. I fired up my headlamp but couldn't find it. I went back in and got a better flashlight and eventually found it to be a small western diamondback, slithering along under some bushes. It wasn't even coiled up. I went ahead and took my walk, but I sure stepped carefully when I got back into my yard.

Maybe the rattler was more ill-tempered than usual because some wood rat removal specialists had spent the morning in the undeveloped, wild desert lot across the street, taking out woodrat middens. Woodrats are snake prey and so, woodrat nests are snake magnets. Or maybe it's the same one I blasted with the garden hose to get it to leave the backyard a week or two ago. Or it could be distantly related to the little, rattle-less one I picked up with my Zefal frame pump and tossed off to the side of the bike path the other day, or perhaps the big one I shooed off another section of the trail last month.

Can you tell what the theme is here? Yeah, there are fucking rattlesnakes all over the place. I'm a zoologist, so in principle, this doesn't bother me. It's all part of the web of life. On the other hand, I'm not keen to get myself, BeanSS, or either of our dogs envenomated. And speaking of snakebites, I just learned that they're way up this year compared to 2010 and 2011, based on emergency calls to the poison control center.

My herpetologist colleague hypothesizes that it's the result of recent, heavy rains increasing vegetation, which can subsidize additional prey as well as conceal snakes. He also suspects most bites are happening around homes and gardens, and have not been, as they often are, immediately preceeded by someone saying "Hey, watch this," or "Here, hold my beer." I tend to believe the guy, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he was bitten by one of his own, captive rattlesnakes several years ago.

And did you see how I worked in a mention of bicycling in my rattlesnake story?

I've beeen road biking up a storm, including both commuting and weekend rides. I'd really rather be mountain biking, but the heat and humidity have been almost intolerable. I just can't stand the overheating I experience on the slower sections of trail, but road biking lets me generate a bit of my own cooling breeze, such as it is. I may also put in my first century this month, though it will have taken me four separate rides to reach 100 miles.

For now, I'm looking forward to the cooler months of autumn, when the rattlesnakes have entered their torpor and I can do a trail ride without my sweat dripping into (and seizing up) my bike's headset bearings.