Yesterday was quite the day for reptiles. On my hike at Windy Hill I saw ten lizards and five snakes! There were two rattlesnakes, one normal looking garter snake, one garter snake with a red stripe on its belly (which I think is rare and endangered) plus another big snake which I mistook for a rattler at first but wound up not having rattles. The most exciting, though was the show by these two rattlesnakes. Luckily I happened to notice them when I was 20 feet away and not as I was passing next to them. At first all I saw were two heads sticking out of the grass, swaying like they were in a snake charming act. Then they started wrestling and tumbled down on to the trail where I could see them better. They were twined around each other and it looked like arm wrestling except the arms weren't attached to anything. Apparently its pretty rare to catch this behavior on video. I stuck around for 20 or 30 minutes watching them partly because it was so interesting and partly because they were blocking my way. They never moved more than a few feet from the trail though so I finally turned around and took a different route. Video: Rattlesnakes, 2 minutes Download: Rattlesnakes.mp4, 32 MB
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Yesterday was quite the day for reptiles. On my hike at Windy Hill I saw ten lizards and five snakes! There were two rattlesnakes, one normal looking garter snake, one garter snake with a red stripe on its belly (which I think is rare and endangered) plus another big snake which I mistook for a rattler at first but wound up not having rattles. The most exciting, though was the show by these two rattlesnakes. Luckily I happened to notice them when I was 20 feet away and not as I was passing next to them. At first all I saw were two heads sticking out of the grass, swaying like they were in a snake charming act. Then they started wrestling and tumbled down on to the trail where I could see them better. They were twined around each other and it looked like arm wrestling except the arms weren't attached to anything. Apparently its pretty rare to catch this behavior on video. I stuck around for 20 or 30 minutes watching them partly because it was so interesting and partly because they were blocking my way. They never moved more than a few feet from the trail though so I finally turned around and took a different route. Video: Rattlesnakes, 2 minutes Download: Rattlesnakes.mp4, 32 MB
Nevada Fall A trip down the Merced river starting at the rim of Yosemite Valley, down the cascade at Illilouette Creek, then over to the top of Nevada Fall, down to Vernal Fall with a jump off Swinging Bridge into the river in Yosemite National Park. My new camera can shoot movie clips too and this movie was shot with this camera. As video cameras go, its pretty awful but it has a big advantage over my real video cam. Its small enough to fit in my pocket and as my main still camera, I'll carry it around with me a lot. A crapcam in the pocket is worth a TV studio at home. Maybe now I'll post to this blog more often. Download: Down The Merced River, 22MB, 3.5 minutes
Walking On Air
Yesterday was quite the day for reptiles. On my hike at Windy Hill I saw ten lizards and five snakes! There were two rattlesnakes, one normal looking garter snake, one garter snake with a red stripe on its belly (which I think is rare and endangered) plus another big snake which I mistook for a rattler at first but wound up not having rattles. The most exciting, though was the show by these two rattlesnakes. Luckily I happened to notice them when I was 20 feet away and not as I was passing next to them. At first all I saw were two heads sticking out of the grass, swaying like they were in a snake charming act. Then they started wrestling and tumbled down on to the trail where I could see them better. They were twined around each other and it looked like arm wrestling except the arms weren't attached to anything. Apparently its pretty rare to catch this behavior on video. I stuck around for 20 or 30 minutes watching them partly because it was so interesting and partly because they were blocking my way. They never moved more than a few feet from the trail though so I finally turned around and took a different route. Video: Rattlesnakes, 2 minutes Download: Rattlesnakes.mp4, 32 MB
