Sidewinders are mostly nocturnal, so we were lucky to encounter this feisty little guy at about 9:30 AM. My friend Don MacCubbin was looking for a slightly shady spot amongst the creosote bushes to change the film in his camera. When he found the nearest shady spot, he discovered at the last moment that this sidewinder had found it first.

Sidewinders are most notable among rattlesnakes for the "horns" above their eyes and their peculiar sideways slithering. They're among the smallest rattlesnakes, but they still pack a mean wallop, as the cowboys probably had occasion to say. Bartlett & Tennant observe:

Despite the small size of this snake, relatively long fangs, a rather virulent venom, and a readiness to bite if molested, dictate that bites by this rattlesnake should be avoided. Since the venom yield is rather small, envenomation is probably not life-threatening. Envenomation will, however, be sufficiently painful to induce you to use greater future care.

We saw this snake very near the border between the ranges of the Mojave Desert Sidewinder and the Colorado Desert Sidewinder, two subspecies of the same species. The most reliable way to tell them apart is to count the scales around the middle of the body. This would require holding the snake still. Keeping in mind the observation quoted above, I chose to identify this snake an alternate way.

I initially identified it as a Mojave Desert Sidewinder, because the end of the tail right before the rattle is black in Colorado Desert Sidewinders and brown in Mojave Desert Sidewinders, and from my photos, this one's tail end appeared black. My friend Fred Harer pointed out that in Colorado Desert Sidewinders he's seen further south, the black end of the tail is considerably more obvious than in this picture. He later contacted a university herpetologist who concurred that this appeared to be a Mojave Desert Sidewinder, so I've changed the identification of this one.

This tiny little baby sidewinder was coiled up in the meager shade of a creosote bush when I noticed its pattern in the early morning. At first glance I thought it was a discarded bracelet.

This tiny little guy was creeping along the road just outside of the Red Rock Canyon campground. The road at that point had steep curbs about six inches high, which was clearly higher than the snake would be able to navigate. I let it climb onto a stick and transferred it to the nearby desert. It was moving very slowly, possibly because it was quite a chubby little snakeling.

The next night, my friend Fred Harer, his wife, his mom, and I did some night cruising for herps from Kennedy Meadows down to Pearsonville along Nine Mile Canyon Road. For quite a while it seemed that all we would see were toads, but as we descended into the warm desert night Fred spotted two little baby sidewinders on the road, both of which he ushered off the road.

Driving back to the Monterey coast from Las Vegas (via Death Valley and Whitney Portal), we camped for a night at one of our favorite spots in the Mojave desert: Red Rock Canyon State Park. After dark I took my flashlight and walked along the road leading to the campground looking for snakes or other wildlife activity. I had nearly finished my walk with nothing to show for it when I came across this handsome little sidewinder in the campground area.

This was the first of two sidewinders I came across within half an hour of dusk. This one was out prowling about ten feet away when it saw me. It started rattling while retreating to the protection of a bush, where I got this photo.

I've got to agree with Fred that the black tip of the tail here is much more prominent than on the first sidewinder that I photographed five years earlier.