After marveling over the animal, we took a number of pictures, and then put it back where we had found it.  It was the only snake we found that day, but what a snake!  What a place!  I knew I would have to come back to the palm forest again.

As fate would have it, I would have to return again.  Only one of the many pictures taken turned out!  The battery for the photometer on my camera was near dead, and all of my exposures were thrown off.  I hadn't noticed in all of the excitement.  All of the closeup shots were dark, and the only picture worth saving was the one here, of me holding the Speckled Racer (a 'proof' shot).  A bitter lesson learned - now I replace that battery before heading anywhere, and keep a spare in my pack.

Captive Speckled Racer.  Photo courtesy of Sacha Korell.

I've gone back to the palm forest every year since, but I have yet to get another picture of the creature.  I have seen Speckled Racers every time, but they also saw me, and would zip into the tangled undergrowth before I could get close.  On each of my trips the temperature has been much warmer than that first year, and the racers were alert, wary, and active.  One year I struck up a conversation with a birder, who told me "I just spent about twenty minutes watching one crawl up and down the edge of the resaca over by the blind."  Of course, the snake was long gone by the time I arrived.

Captive Speckled Racer.  Photo courtesy of Sacha Korell.

The palm forest is worthy of far more than single-minded pursuit of one snake.  There are plenty of fascinating flora and fauna to see here.  It is a fabulous place for bird-watching - Altimira Orioles, Green Jays, Olive Sparrows, and so on.  I saw my first (and probably only) Northern Bearded Tryannulet here.  And there's that Indigo Snake that still needs spotting, and the little Black-Striped Snake (Coniophanes) is also found here.

The racers remain elusive, but I will persist.  One day I'll get my shot.  Memories fade and blur, but a photograph keeps things true.  I'll keep coming back to the palm forest.