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| Western diamondback (Crotalus atrox) |
A few weeks ago I shared a post that focused on the
incredible abundance of wildlife that can occur along just a little stretch of
creek deep within the ranch’s interior. This week I would like to post
something similar, although this time, instead of looking at couple kilometers
of creek-bed, we are going to focus on what amounts to little more than a mud
puddle in the desert. Over the last month I have had a camera recording
wildlife movements around a small spring in the upper pasture of Sacatara
Canyon, as part of a larger monitoring effort in the area. The videos below
were recorded over only two weeks from late July through mid-August, which
speaks to the critical value of even such a miniscule water source this time of
year in such a sunbaked and thirsty environment. I had never seen a diamondback
drink before, but the stern looking fella pictured above was having its fill on the morning I
installed this fated motion-sensor camera.
