Northern Pacific Rattle Snake

I've watched documentaries on it before, it's incredible. You should see if you can find some YouTube videos on it, it really blows your mind! Especially when they do it in slow motion but still time it!

Basically, if you think you are fast, a snake strike is much faster. Always.

Well it's never a good idea to stand close to a venomous snake (or harmless if you don't want to get bit), but being a decent distance away is okay. Just be aware of what it's doing, snakes can strike incredibly fast.

As a general rule, snakes can strike about half their body length. But that only works if you can see the whole body and estimate how long it is haha. Smaller, slender snakes can kind of launch their body at you if you make them really grumpy, but a large rattlesnake like this wouldn't be able to get its whole body off the ground to do that

There is no way to tell age of a snake by looking at it. The number of rattles indicate how many times it has shed in its life, and generally the longer the rattle gets, the easier it is to break off. This is probably an old ish individual, but there is no way to tell.

Wow! Great photos Jemma!