I saw three non-boot-dented rattlers on my bike ride today. I was up in the Santa Monica mountains, and rode past a pair of them, about a foot and a half away. They were just under 2' long, and about as big around as the clear center part of a CD (hey, gotta pick a reference that everyone here can relate to ). They were twining around each other, flopping around, buzzing and hissing. I stopped to watch for about 10 minutes, or so. Their rattles were about the length of the last two knuckles of my pinky.

On the way back, I saw the third one, off to the right of the trail. This one was maybe 3' long, and not quite (but almost) as big around as my wrist. It had gorgeous colouring -- very saturated yellow margins around the dark patterns -- looked a lot like this one, and this one. Very beautiful.