JZ, I'm leaning towards gopher snake only for the sake of the shape of the head. Rattlesnakes has the more spade-shaped head of a viper and your dad's photo looks more like the elongated shape of the gopher snake.
Checking the ranges on this site reveals most rattlesnakes' ranges are in Southern Cali, rather than up in the Bay area.
We need a "What is that snake?" website to answer this sort of question.
Or a "Rate my snake" site.
It was my dad who got the picture. He also got a couple more with a regular camera-camera about half an hour later, when the snake was feeling a little more relaxed and had gone back to stretching out and sunning itself on a nice toasty rock. I know there's one reasonably good picture of the head, which would probably be a lot more useful for ID'ing purposes. I should give him a nudge.
Honestly, I think snakes are pretty awesome, and if it's a gopher snake I want it to go its merry way unmolested. But if it was about to venomously bite my Matilda I want the fucker nuked from orbit.
JZ, is that the position the snake was in when it was rattling? If so, I think it's not a rattler because I *think* the tail has to be pointing up with rattlers.
Or a "Rate my snake" site.
Though you might want to make sure you have safe search on before googling for one.
kd lang is hot. Plus she and I have similar tastes in cars. Once I was on a "classic cars for sale" site and ran across (IIRC) a '63 Mercury Monterey (not her actual car) she was selling. That would have been so cool to buy a car from her.
Normally, I hate this game but you picked a few of my weaknesses this time:
FCM:
DB Woodside c,
J August Richards f-oh yeah!
Jesse L Martin m-my man!
Eric Close f-longtime crush,
Seamus Dever c,
TJ Thyne m-him or Hodgins, I'm not sure which, but I love this guy!
Neil Patrick Harris c,
Gareth David Lloyd m-how could I not!
Jospeh Gordon Levitt f-even though it would be total cougardom
Perkins, no, it'd lift its tail to rattle. Not
up
up, but definitely off-the-ground-not-touching-anything up.
Okay, just that picture made me yell and jump back from my computer. I don't like snakes.
Sigh. It's the deadline to appeal my prperty assessment. Other than "Seriously you think is worth what???" I am not sure how to proceed in this.
Hmm. I'm out of information then.