A Rattling Complication

Yesterday evening Chaco snake-barked and I had to relocate a small rattler from the patio. Before releasing my captures, I often take their portrait. This one was rather small, so I thougt one of my replica pots decorated with big double spirals would make the perfect complement to the coiled snake. At first, the reptile wasn't having any of it and was determined to leave in a straight line away from me and my pot.

It took a lot of convincing and stacking and restacking the unwilling star of the photoshoot before he agreed to sit, and coil up, next to one of the large black and white spirals on the Tularosa Black on White (or Cibola White Ware) Pot. But the pot was absorbing the early morning sun and the snake had had a chilly night. So eventually he snuggled up against the pot and I got some photos.

I like this one best that I took in my own cast shadow to avoid too much distraction from slanting light and body shadows of pot and snake. Also, the snake is coiled up right next to the spiral pattern which was the initial inspiration for the imprompto photo shoot

But Snek now developed ideas of his own and began to investigate the big warm object next to him. Are there ancient memories in the genes of his tribe of living next to pots like this in ruins of the Southwest and even further back of indigenous people who made pots like this?

Now he seemed very comfortable, very familiar with the set-up. He explored ...

He found the entrance, slid in and settled in. A retreat made for his size. I could just see him shuffling his coils, resting his head close to the exit.

There was no way to convince him to give up his cave. He felt safe and cozy. He gave a relaxed little buzz when I pked him with a stick. He never bothered to strike. He felt at home. Iwould have to leave my pretious pot out there in the State Trust Land until he decided to leave on his own, just hoping that nobody would find it. I could just imagine the outcome if someone did: A shriek, a dropped, broken pot, maybe a bitten finger? Eventually I ran home to get my lizard-stick, thin, with a noose made from fishing line. With it, I managed to pull him out of the pot, only to find out that it takes handling the caught critter, usually a small lizard, to open the noose and release the victim. To do this with the snake, I had to run home again and fetch a heamostat to hold the head and my little nail scissors to cut the thread. All good now, snake indignant but free, pot home with me, I maybe a little smarter?