A sweaty runner has
delivered a message from our roaming francophile correspondent , Peter Burleigh , telling of yet
another encounter with a
large reptile . Readers will recall that
intrepid Burleigh has had several skirmishes with
snakes in his
NSW island residence and finished
off one serpent , a venous Black Snake , which invaded his house , by
nervously sucking it into a
fancy , new - age Dyson cleaner.
This
blog ran his brave
fight with that snake in great
detail and mentioned his unsolicited
testimonial for the machine’s
powerful snake removal quality ,
in expectation that
the firm would give him a free
one , plus a set of steak knives ,
and send along a cash
donation to defray his travel expenses
in the outback and overseas, churning out golden prose and illustrations for Little Darwin , the only recompense received from us being an old Bank of Egypt one pound note , exceedingly hard and dangerous to cash in downtown Cairo . As the cleaner company did not respond , we refuse to give
it any further publicity and hope its
tubes clog up .
Pete’s latest
snake episode involved Monty, one of two large local pythons, which swallowed two possums
and then slumbered outside
the front door
for three days until
they had
been digested . Stepping out the
front door heighted Peter’s
awareness of the surroundings .
 |
| Adder |
In a far corner of
this writer’s island abode in
QLD is an area where a neighbour said he had seen not one but
two Death Adders. No such snakes have been seen since then but recently a
Black Snake was seen sunning
itself at a nearby shed and crawled away while I dashed off to
get the camera.
Close to sunset last week I ventured into Death
Adder Territory , very alert, to cut off a damaged frangipani branch . Closely checking the
ground for Adders, I gave a
start when sudden movement by a brown
mass caught my eye
on the other side of
the fence ... Dracula , the cheese eating
Coucal. Greeting him by name and
throwing in a few conversational Whoop! Whoops!, this resulted in him
pressing up against the wire and looking at me .
 |
| Boo! |
Slipping inside for the camera, I
informed my wife that Dracula
was visiting , and returned
to the
dangerous corner . No Dracula
could be seen . Walked up and
down going Whoop! Whoop!-camera ready
to snap
my old friend .
In the event of men in
white coats suddenly arriving and attempting to drag me off , I would explain that I was making
strange animal noises and marching about with a camera for perfectly sane reasons , Your Worship , Master in Lunacy. Trickster
Dracula had seemingly
decamped.
Suddenly, behind me was
Dracula , causing me to jump in fright, looking like a curled up Adder in attack mode . He proceeded to run all over the backyard, stop for a drink
and wade in the Curlew dish, causing them to hiss
, pecked at the
netting over a fruit tree ,
fluttered up onto the back fence , paused for a photo opportunity , then flew away.
