went on a hike this past sunday and saw this bad ass black-tailed rattlesnake. i’ve never seen a rattlesnake in the wild or that close before. it was a dream come true. i thought catching black widows and scorpions in the backyard of our old house was fun, but this was 100 times better. i noticed the tail sticking out and immediately i stopped. it rattled a little bit but then went into some foliage and just watched me and my hiking partner. then i wanted to catch the rattle sound on audio, so we threw sticks at it to rile it up, and it got pretty pissed. i managed to record some small video clips, but the video sucks because i was concentrating more on the creature in front of me.
then, we waited to see what it would do. it went further into the brush in the opposite direction of us. it gave a couple small rattles, as a sort of “do not follow” warning. we obliged and went on our merry way. it was a delight to see such an amazing creature and i hope to see more. it was the perfect end to a tiring hike and encountering the snake made up for seeing some evil swine children murder a lizard right in front of me.