A few words from Nick: Sssurprise visitor(sss)!

Hello everyone. Nick here - the guest blogger.

I was digging today and looked down and there was a snake at my feet looking quite agitated. It went under the edge of the hole (there is a considerable overhang at the bottom of the hole).


I dug for a while longer then decided to give him a chance to escape. I set up my chair and sat and had a drink. He came out from under the edge of the bottom of the hole and began to move away. I took some photos and made sure he moved far enough away. He didn't. He moved about five metres and disappeared into a clump of grass. I would assume there is a burrow amongst the grass clump.

He was identified at this time as a western brown snake and was about 120cm long. I didn't bring him home for Vaughan to have a look at as I did with the blind snake I found yesterday.  Vaughan said he was fine with that.

Yesterday's blind snake had fallen into the bottom of the mine along with several pieces of sandstone I had cut from the side. He looked a bit injured.

When I got him home he had his mouth full of dirt. I got the magnifiers on and cleaned out and washed his mouth. Vaughan was keen to release him so we found a termite nest he could access (they are known to feed on termite/ant larvae and eggs). He went straight in and seemed to be happy to be heading away from us.

Altogether two very positive encounters with the local reptile community. Funny that Vaughan gets all the lizards and I get the snakes. Must be lucky.