Bonzer Words!: Snakes
"I have not had many encounters with snakes because if I think I see one I usually back away at a very unlady-like pace, but they are very shy creatures and are well on their way before I can spot them,'' says Margaret van Dyk.
We have two small dams and I know there must be snakes there so in the summer if I have to go near the dams I sing at the top of my voice and that frightens everything. Even deaf snakes.
Our lovely Tilley had a passion for snakes and was very possessive of those she caught. Yellow-faced Whip Snakes are abundant even in Brisbane suburbs. They can be mildly toxic but their heads are so small they are really only a threat to small children and small cats or dogs (Tilley). In our previous garden they were common and Tilley would catch one and kill it very quickly with a flick of her head, but that was not the end of the saga. Tilley liked to keep her catch and parade around with it. Hennie would panic because she might ingest the head where the poison glands are and then the tug-of-war would start. Hennie on one end and Tilley on the other. Back and forward they would go, with Tilley having a wonderful time. Eventually the whip snake would break in half and Tilley would be off like the wind with her half expecting to be chased. If Hennie had the head end peace would be resorted, if that was not the case I would disapear inside and leave them to sort it out.
Carpet Pythons are reasonably common here and I think they are quite beautiful, from a distance. Friends from NZ spotted a plastic python draped over the top of a six foot fence outside our kitchen window. We had to explain that it was, in fact, real, breathing and alive. We talked them out of going straight back to the airport and they actually became quite fond of her, naming her Cynthia Boris, thus allowing for whatever sex she was. Cynthia stayed around for five nights, draping herself over the fence with her head two feet from a Pawpaw tree with ripening fruit at dusk. She was spotted heading towards the bush on the fifth morning with a large bulge in her middle. Obviously she had caught a fruit bat or possum that had come to feed on the Pawpaw.
Hennie's son from the USA found another large python in our goldfish pond: it was having a cooling dip on a very hot day. Tony turned white and backed off as it slowly emerged and disappeared into the shrubbery; he refused to go anywhere near the pond again.
© Margaret van Dyk
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Margaret writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
