Returning to our little snake friend of the path

Hello, everyone.

Today we discovered that the Camino walk we have been training for must be rescheduled. The government of Spain declared a national emergency with travel restrictions, as near as we can tell.

So returning to the puzzle of the snake was an attractive thought. We think we have him identified:
desert massasauga is a type of smallish rattlesnake that lives in the Rio Grande Valley. It likes dry grassy country, and since there has been very little rain this year it should be very happy these days! (Link is to a photo from the New Mexico herp society.) We're still having trouble spotting the pit in his face, but he certainly has the cat's eye pupils, and the color. The tail photo seems to show a small rattle chain beginning to form. And he has the full cheeks of a rattler instead of the narrow head of many other snakes.

We cropped the photos and came up with these detail bits:

The head

Overall look at the snake, lying on the pavement

The tail

Interested readers are welcome to add information about this interesting reptile in the comments.

Wildlife on the walking trail

Hello, everyone.

A few days ago we were walking on the Hike and Bike Trail in our town. We often carry cameras in case something interesting turns up.

I almost stepped on this one.

He doesn't have a visible rattle--the first thing we thought to wonder about!--but he's rather small. (Around 18 inches?) He does have a line of brown spots down his back. His head is triangular, the wide part being behind his eyes. No pits were visible in his cheeks, at least to our glance. (But we didn't give him an all-over look.)

A view from another angle.

He was lying in the sunshine trying to warm up for the day, minding his own business right out there on the paved path. We passed on by, live and let live, and continued our walk. When we returned through that spot he had moved on.