26 December, 2010

Beautiful but Vacuous

On Boxing Day we had some friends over for breakfast and had an unexpected visitor dropped in.
He certainly got everyone's attention. Perhaps he was after the young wallaby in the bag behind her but it was getting hot under the roof and he wanted to shift. He had tied his rather fat middle section in a knot and jammed it between the iron and the flashing. It is probably not the same snake as features in http://alanswildlife.blogspot.com/2009/06/ceiling-carpet.html as I think this animal is smaller. Shorter that is; it is certainly fat.


'Beautiful but vacuous' just about sums him up.
All hands action stations! The snake could not be budged despite Andrew and Tony's best efforts. Not forwards, not backwards. I went on the roof and loosened the ridge capping enough to reach in under and try and push him out. No go. Andrew wanted to have a go on the roof. With Andrew holding on to the middle of the snake I was able to feed it backwards, bit by bit into the space and Andrew prevented it from tightening the knot. Once he had the head out he was able to pull the snake through with a bit of shoving from underneath. During all this the snake made no attempt to strike at any of us though it would have had plenty of chances and must have suffered some pain when snagged on sharp iron.
Only when the dog came in close for a sniff did the snake become defensive. See the lovely blue of his mouth. Dog backed off and no harm done. Everyone got to pat or hold the snake before we released it in the back shed.

I wonder if I could fit it with a ring like the Chinese do with cormorants and train it to catch rabbits for my dinner?

I really will have to find a way to seal this gap. Christmas day spent cleaning up from a cyclone and Boxing Day morning spent rescuing the snake. The kids may not even remember this as the operation could not compare with creating their own puppets & play.

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