Michael:Encounters

The half eaten hare
Protected by the rattler
Will soon be devoured.

Monday, May 6, 2019

It’s not even summer yet and already I’ve encountered more rattlesnakes than I can recall coming across in a single year. On Friday I crossed the same snake’s path twice and neither of us was very happy about it, though I lacked a distinctive rattle, or even my typical short yelp, to indicate my displeasure.

This snake was about a mile or so up the Ray Miller Trail and was curled up partly on the trail and partly under a mustard plant. I was able to scooch it off the trail by stomping my feet but not without it giving me a good wag of it’s distinctive tail. And in just a few feet I found out why it was so agitated. There was a half eaten bunny about 15 feet up the trail.

Initially, this puzzled me, as I figured the forensic file worthy bunny couldn’t have been the snake’s kill because snakes don’t chew their food. But whatever, I was flagging for my hiking group and really didn’t have a whole lot of time to investigate, so I’ll admit, I sullied the crime scene and kicked the bunny aside so as not to startle our guests. And then I didn’t think much about it.

Until, on my way back down Ray Miller, I saw 4 older women stopped at about the same spot as I had come across Mr. Rattler earlier in the morning.
This time he was curled up next to the corpse of the bunny and the women were wondering if I knew what was the best way to get by. They had a couple of feet long branch they were thinking of poking the snake with, but I proposed that since the snake was curled up next to it’s prey, it probably wouldn’t be very happy about being poked and might possibly leap a few feet to strike at whomever was trying to separate it from it’s next meal.
I thought it might be wiser to climb up and around on the hillside opposite the snake to give it some distance.

After I had made a successful crossing to reach them, they decided to give it a go. And, as opposed to the forensic file stories on T.V., we all went merrily on our way and the true killer of the bunny was never revealed and now will undoubtedly never be thought about again as much of the evidence now resides in the momentarily well fed rattler.