A Col­orado Desert Shov­el-nosed Snake skims the desert floor.

By mid­night this time of year, the Milky Way has risen to the ceil­ing of the sky. The desert has cooled to short-sleeve tem­per­a­tures with­out the uncom­fort­able humid­i­ty that accom­pa­nies the thun­der­storm months of July and August. We tra­versed about 100 miles of Anza-Bor­rego high­way look­ing for a few good snakes and geck­os, but this year found obser­va­tions lean.  2014 has so far pro­duced lit­tle rain. Not sur­pris­ing, then, the spring saw far few­er wildlife births, plant blooms and insect pop­u­la­tions. As a result, local desert ecosys­tems have fall­en into Moth­er Nature’s strict con­ser­va­tion mode–essentially, it boils down to all sys­tems expend­ing less ener­gy and mak­ing few­er appear­ances. And if you’re a snake, you deal with it.

Click on any pho­to for enlarge­ment and addi­tion­al photos

Even at its diminu­tive scale, the Shov­el-nosed may streak over asphalt or sand faster than the eye can follow.

Shov­el-nosed snakes are apt to cross the road at all hours of the night look­ing for food, but unlike the fox, bob­cat and coy­ote that sprint­ed across our head­light beams at var­i­ous wee hours, these tiny 5–10 inch long snakes depend on luck to be missed by a set of tires.

Some shov­el-noses dis­play col­or with the same band­ing sequence as the feared Coral Snake, but for­tu­nate­ly corals are not found in the Anza-Bor­rego area (and their red band is much wider and more pro­nounced around the full body). The sim­i­lar col­or asso­ci­a­tions are prob­a­bly more than coin­ci­den­tal; for exam­ple, they could be advan­tages based on one snake mim­ic­k­ing anoth­er species.  The shov­el-noses are noc­tur­nal hunters, lit­er­al­ly div­ing under­ground if prey is sensed, find­ing much of their food source like a crea­ture out of Dune.

A Red Dia­mond Rat­tlesnake (Cro­talus ruber) is out for a lounge on the warm sand.

Red Dia­mond­back Rat­tlesnakes don’t exact­ly paint the town with that color–like all snakes, they have lim­it­ed ener­gy sup­plies and pre­fer to move slow­ly away from activ­i­ty.  Their prin­ci­pal strat­e­gy is not to be mov­ing about.  You’ve passed many who were coiled at the edge of the hik­ing trail, as you and your friends (or scout troop!) saun­tered by with­out any­one real­iz­ing they were there. Their col­or is a tint of mauve or a shade of brown–but you can call it how­ev­er you see it, or invent an entire­ly new col­or just for Red Dia­mond­backs. One thing is for sure, they blend in…and you don’t. With their gray­ish check­er pat­tern on the sun­ny­side alter­nat­ing with white bor­ders, they share sim­i­lar mark­ings with oth­er dia­mond­backs, but the oth­ers aren’t near­ly as shy and their poi­son is more virulent.

It takes a moment to rec­og­nize the face of the snake. Imag­ine being a small animal.

Cam­ou­flage is essen­tial for this snake’s sur­vival. Not being seen is prac­ti­cal­ly the only defense against birds large enough to pick the snake off the ground and climb with it to a height nec­es­sary to kill it by con­cus­sion when dropped.  A paved road is as handy as sheet bedrock for this pur­pose, when one is near­by. The snake’s cam­ou­flage also works the oth­er way around. It is one of its stealth tools, par­tic­u­lar­ly when hunt­ing wary mice and rats, the most pop­u­lar prey for rat­tlesnakes.  Mice and rats are not defense­less by any means, their intel­li­gence and effec­tive sub­ter­ranean archi­tec­ture usu­al­ly thwarts the snakes. The ground squir­rels have fig­ured it out their own way. They are par­tic­u­lar­ly adapt­ed to the rat­tlers, and will bold­ly face off against them to defend their ter­ri­to­ry and young–after all, they are immune to rat­tlesnake poi­son.  In the end, if food is to be obtained using a rat­tlesnake’s stealth, the best tool to have is patience–and that every wild rat­tlesnake must have.

Pho­tos by Bar­bara Swan­son except where noted