We’re entering the last month of summer, and it hasn’t really rained since spring, and in spring, it hardly rained at all. Parts of the creek were dry at the beginning of the year. The water has continued to evaporate bit by bit. At first there was still a running trickle, and then a few small ponds where we still could see fish and water bugs a couple weeks ago. Now there are only stray puddles.

Yesterday evening, I stopped where the street bridges the creek and looked down. The top photo is the east side.

I crossed the street to the west side, looked over the railing, and froze. I’d never seen anything like it, the snakes in an inch or two of water, motionless, their faces just above the surface. They seemed to be dark in color with a rusty red cast, ranging from one and a half to two feet in length.

Cold blooded creatures that they are, they may have had difficulty in the 105 degree heat earlier in the day, and come to the water to lower their body temperatures. Or maybe they are a species of water snake with little room now to spread out and swim.


At first I noticed only three, and then discovered the fourth a little ways beyond. I took the pics, which do no justice to the serene power that emanated from them. A fifth snake shot out from below the bridge and disappeared under a stone, its body whipping up the sediments into a cloud of muddy water.