In southern California, it is easy to forget that the cities here are surrounded and criss-crossed by foothills and mountains of wilderness.

ANAHEIM HILLS – It’s 88 degrees and not yet noon. A warm wind licks Walnut Canyon Reservoir and tumbles up the Santa Ana foothills, along Hidden Canyon Road to where snake wrangler Jason Magee is digging trenches and telling stories.

Rattlesnake stories.

Two weeks ago, he says, a nearly 4-foot Southern Pacific rattlesnake “with an attitude” buzzed him from under a doggie feeder in a Ladera Ranch backyard.

Magee scooped up the buzzing snake with a 3-foot-long set of tongs and dropped it in a bucket.

“I don’t know if I’d call it being nervous, but nerves and adrenaline kick in that make you more alert,” he says. “You definitely know you’re holding something that’s deadly.”

While most Southern Californians run away from rattlesnakes, Magee spends his summers chasing them. And this summer, he’s chased more than ever.

“This has been my busiest year by far,” says Magee, who owns OC Snake Removal and who has removed more than 1,000 rattlesnakes from yards in the past eight years. […]

“They’re definitely on the crawl,” Magee says, of Orange County’s three rattlesnake varieties – Southern Pacific, red diamond and southwestern speckled, which can grow to more than 4 feet.