I went out on a hike today, and nearly trod on this poor creature:



Califonia Mountain Kingsnake...

Red touch black, friend of Jack.
Red on yellow, kill a fellow.

Although I wouldn't want a "friendly" nip from that guy!

damn nice shot!

Red touch black, friend of Jack.
Red on yellow, kill a fellow.

Heh, first thing I thought when I saw the photo.

Red touch black, friend of Jack.
Red on yellow, kill a fellow.

Heh, first thing I thought when I saw the photo.

Yep. It was also the first thing we tried to think of when we spotted the first one (this was actually the second we saw). Unfortunately, the best we could come up with was "red on yellow, friendly fellow, red on black, stay far back", which is the reason the snake is on a 5' stick, instead of in my hands. Oh, well, when something poisonous is/may be involved, better to err on the side of caution, I suppose...

Although I wouldn't want a "friendly" nip from that guy!

Me neither. I picked him up with a pair of sticks. Long ones. It did strike at the stick about 3 times, but once I had it on the stick, it was pretty docile.

nice shot!

Thanks!

It was taken with the stick in one hand, the camera in the other. I couldn't put the stick down, because it would have crawled off, but nobody else wanted to get any closer to take a picture, let alone hold the stick. I'm quite pleased the way it turned out, as I wasn't holding either camera, or stick, very steady.

Taken with an Olympus CAMEDIA D-40 (4 megapixel), mentioned here.