Snakes!

Why'd it have to be snakes?  I find snakes to be fascinating creatures, my wife on the other hand is not such a fan :)  Arizona has 13 different Rattlesnake species, more than any other state in the US.

Western Diamondback Rattlenakes are the most common around Tucson. 

A few years back I was hiking by myself in Saguaro National Park East and I came across this snake, by far the largest Rattlesnake that I had ever seen.  The pictures came out a bit blurry, but I did catch him in a lazy yawn.  You can't really tell the scale, but he was a big one!

Both of the above snakes are Western Diamondbacks.  Here is a picture of a Tiger Rattlesnake so named because of his stripes.

Hard to tell in the second picture, but he is eating his breakfast!  Mmmmmmm tasty mouse.  One time when I was hiking with my father I walked right by a rare Rattlesnake without noticing him.  Turns out my Dad had found an Arizona Ridgenose Rattlesnake, a  small rare snake that only lives in a few mountain ranges here in Arizona.

Difficult to see in the picture but he has a really neat design on his head.  I read somewhere that some Natives of Arizona used the design as a face paint.

I can't talk snake like Harry Potter, but I do enjoy finding and photographing these cool desert reptiles.