Brown

I would hate to tempt fate, but it looks like spring is nearly here. There is pink blossom in the garden, the daffodils are emerging and, after quite an absence, sunglasses weather is here again.

It has not been a cold winter when compared to the north of England, there have been no frosty car windscreens, no snow and no biting wind. Indeed, outdoors it has been bright, fresh and thoroughly pleasant.

On the other hand, indoors has been brass monkeys; we have often left the back door open to let some warm air in and Mandy has taken to warming the bed up with her hairdryer. Reminiscent of a couple houses I lived in while at university.

Our house is a lovely traditional bluestone cottage built in about 1910. It is spacious, affordable, in a great suburb, with its own wine cellar, and bloody freezing in the winter while unbearably hot in the summer.

Not to worry though, the worst of the cold is over and the first barbie is on the radar.

While the warm weather cheered us up no end, it is still a bit cold for the snakes around here. Thank goodness, my mum would say, as I found myself learning to catch and handle a brown snake somewhere in the hills, at least an hour from medical attention.

If you haven’t come across the brown snake before, this website, among others lists it as the second most venomous snake in the world. This is a contentious subject as the snake has to land a bite first. So a shy snake with massively toxic venom, such as a brown snake, is less dangerous than a thoroughly ill tempered bugger which packs a lesser punch but is more than happy to use it.

Anyway, I think it sounds cool to say that the snake in the picture is potentially the second deadliest in the world. Sorry mum.

I was lucky enough to get this invitation to a snake handling lesson following my trip to the venom farm a few weeks ago and what a brilliant day it was. The chap teaching myself and a guy from a wildlife park has a part time business clearing snakes from houses and offices and has had many years experience in handling them; he is a no nonsense pro who makes Steve Irwin look like a show pony. What a bloke to learn from.

We spent the morning at his friend’s house, somewhere in the hills surrounding Adelaide, practicing our techniques with a rubber snake until he thought we were ready to take on the real thing. In between learning the ropes we played with her pet pythons and ate home made pumpkin soup. Not bad.

Eventually, deemed ready to do battle with the snake, we went to see a farmer who figured that one more snake on his land probably wouldn’t make much difference, and found a nice flat piece of pastureland.

We had taken a snake with us, one which Mike had recently caught in a house somewhere in the suburbs. It was a beautiful animal, about a metre long, slender and healthy. Our mission was to pick it up from the grass and, in stages, manage it in such a way that its fangs didn’t get near us, then hold it’s head between thumb and forefinger and eventually place it safely in a porous bag to be placed out of harm’s way. These things are both fiddly and scary with only two hands and one very dangerous animal.

Fortunately the weather was wet and a little cold, not ideal for a snake’s reflexes, but perfect for a clumsy and nervous chap like me who did not need a writhing, agitated and frightened snake to deal with. While it is generally a shy animal, it is always important to remember that an angry brown snake does bite.

My heart was cracking my ribs as I tried to be assertive about grabbing it for the first time but eventually I got the hang of it, albeit with a very dopey snake.

Obviously snakes are not at their best in the cold weather and complacency could easily set in while practicing handling the poor thing. However, it only needed to sun to peep from behind the clouds for a couple of minutes to wake it up and remind us just what a quick and, at that point, irritated animal it was. What a buzz that was! We have a follow up lesson in mid summer when the snakes will be a little more lively, I can’t wait.

After a whole day with the snake, I was feeling quite fond of it and it was great to find a decent place to release it near an old tree by a creek. Just as we let it go to enjoy a life eating frogs, the sun came out and the dopey practice snake woke up again, sniffed its freedom and disappeared effortlessly into the rotten trunk; a graceful and beautiful animal. God help the frogs this summer.

Have a good week.

M&W