The MGS Forum
Gardening in mediterranean climates => Wildlife in the garden (birds, butterflies, and how to attract them) => Topic started by: Daisy on November 20, 2013, 03:25:30 PM
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I occasionally see a snake in the garden, but this one has been around for a few weeks now.
He is about a metre long, very slim and very beautiful.
He doesn't seem to mind me being in the garden. Probably because every time I pass him I say "Hello my handsome" ::) Although to-day, he got a bit fed up with me taking his photo. After about 10 minutes he gracefully moved into the retaining wall.
Daisy :)
(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/10961501144_1e07c597d9_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93752583@N02/10961501144/)
023 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93752583@N02/10961501144/) by Daisyincrete (http://www.flickr.com/people/93752583@N02/), on Flickr
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3811/10961508406_f26a169a9d_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93752583@N02/10961508406/)
025 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93752583@N02/10961508406/) by Daisyincrete (http://www.flickr.com/people/93752583@N02/), on Flickr
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It is indeed a beautiful snake. So beautiful that I decided to look it up and it is, I think, a leopard snake. I saw this article about snakes in Malta with a little bit of information about them and their place in Maltese history.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20121128/environment/A-snake-without-venom.447207#.UozHkMRHTTo
So, not only do you have some of the most beautiful flowers that we see on the forum, but now also one of the most beautiful of snakes!
:)
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Strange, when I looked the article up directly I could view it. Through the link in MGS forum that I have just checked I am told that I need to subscribe to read the article. So here is a different link with a photo of a specimen from Crete :-)
http://mwilsonherps.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/adieu-to-2009/
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What a beautiful pet you got there. I could open both links below without any questions about subscription.
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A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
D H Lawrence
Taormina, 1923
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Really beautiful - both the photographs Daisy and the poem Pamela. I always feel both attracted to and, at the same time repelled by the occasional snakes I encounter in the garden. Once I was lucky enough to see the courtship dance of two quite small snakes on a path close to the house. I stood with baited breath as they writhed around each other totally oblivious of me and felt honoured to have witnessed such a delicate and moving sight.
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and BATS.
There is a review by Seamus Perry of D.H. Lawrence, The Poems , in Times Lit. Supp. 8.11.2013, where Perry quotes from Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers.
Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
Looking like old rags? perhaps. Disgusting? not really although I wish they'd find another lavatory which is not my cellar.
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Love the photo of the snake, In Crete
Love the poem by D. H Lawrence about the snake in Italy, I think
Love the poem about the bat
But where is your cellar Joanna?
I find all these posts much more interesting when I can take a journey, in my mind, to whichever country the post originated
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Now the summer is arriving in Toscana, the snakes are warming up too. I can't share the attraction to them which has been expressed above, I just want to run away. That's probably a result of having spent a childhood among very poisonous snakes. I now understand that they are part of the garden environment, but I wonder if anyone can suggest a way of warning them that I am there and encouraging them to get out of the way for a while.
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Snakes are sensitive to vibrations and sound, so stomp your feet and sing a song! The snakes are probably as scared of yoy as you are of them, so give them a chance to get away.
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I know how you feel Joanna. I grew up in Australia where we thought the only good snake is a dead snake. Leave it alone and mind it doesn't get inside. You don't want one inside the house. Is there a snake catcher who could take it away and relocate it to an area away from houses?
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JTh many thanks for your advice. I'll try singing, even dancing to create vibration, and probably early morning garden work before the snakes warm up. I have a bowl of water placed in the garden which the small birds use for drinking and bathing. I am now wondering how snakes keep their internal water levels up, if they might be drinking from the bowl too. But when? too cold at night and I haven't seen them during the day. I imagine that they will be interested in capturing the little birds.
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Susan Ibiza, thanks for your fellow feelings. Living in the Australian bush one of the first things we were taught was to get out of the way of snakes. And you are absolutely right about not letting them into the house. There is a bush story, I am sure it is true, about a king brown snake entering a kitchen and curling up under the refrigerator looking for warmth. Refrigeration was supplied, haphazardly, by burning a kerosene fuelled lamp. The usual way of dealing with a snake in the house was to shoot it and to fix the house later, but that method wasn't possible as the kerosene might have exploded and burnt the house down. It took many hours to coax the snake out of the house. One of the stock men did actually get it into a hessian sack. But we are short on snake catchers here in Toscana. And I don't really want to move those which are living around me.
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What a beautiful snake, lucky you! And a tremendous poem. Thank you for sharing.
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I came across this chap on my early morning stroll around our field today. Unfortunately, certainly for it, 2 of our cats found it at the same time. This is were we encounter a dilemma, who has priority, the local wildlife or the introduced species. Very difficult to strike a balance when considering the pros and cons of the situation. I hate to see the wildlife killed but some of them can be a real pest, the mice for example. Until we got the cats we used to have a problem with mice getting into the house, in the kitchen drawers, etc, now we don't. There is also the potential threat posed by such creatures as snakes. Not so much to us as adults but we have 2 grandchildren, the youngest only 3 years old, who regularly run around and play in the field and who have no concept of the possible dangers. Having the cats on patrol possibly reduces any risk.
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Have you identified your visitor, John?
These slithery creatures are, it seems, becoming more plentiful or less shy on our land also. We encountered two species in the last few weeks, the Dwarf or Sand boa (Eryx jaculus turcicus, Gr. Tiflitis) and the more fearsome-looking Four-lined snake (Elaphe quatuorlineata, Gr. Lafiatis), both non-venomous. The latter was too fast and didn't hang around to have its picture taken. There are seven snake species on Paros, including the venomous Cat snake (Telescopus fallax) and the Horned viper (Vipera ammodytes meridionalis).
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I'm not an expert on snakes, Alice, but I think it was a juvenile Large Whip (Coluber jugularis), non-venomous. I believe that there are 9 varieties of snake on Cyprus, 3 of them venomous. The Cat Snake (Telescopus fallax) and Montpellier Snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) that are both back-fanged and thus less of a risk to humans and the Blunt-nosed Viper (Vipera lebertina). One of our friends was bitten by the latter last year while out with a Walking Group and spent 3 days in the Intensive Care Ward of a local hospital. He was still walking with a limp several months later and his leg was black with a large indented area. I'm not sure that he has fully recovered still.
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I don’t fear snakes much generally, there were lots of vipers where I grew up, but I was not too pleased when my husband found this one in our bedroom yesterday. It seemed to be in the process of changing its skin and probably looked for a shelter indoors. I tried to take some photos through the lidded glass bowl where my husband kept it after he caught it, it was impossible to get a clear picture through the thick glass, so I am not sure which species it was. It was quite small, ca 20 cm long and the head was triangular and flat. It was not Vipera ammodytes (no horn), it seems the other possibilities here are V. berus, and V. ursinii.
I must remember to sing and dance more the keep the bedroom snake-free.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8796/17207766709_9623cc6c7f_n.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/sdAiwV)
P5060860 Vipera sp.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/sdAiwV) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8775/16771447634_214429b3b3_n.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/ry345f)
P5060858 Vipera sp in our bedroom.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/ry345f) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
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My goodness, how did he catch it?
I think there is a book about Greek snakes.
I seem to have seen it somewhere
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He first tried put the glass bowl over it, the snake was not co-operative, so he had to use the tongs we use for our fireplace.
I can't help you with the book, but I remember reading Patrick Leigh Fermour's book 'Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece', where he says the the chanses of being bitten by a snake is next to nothing compaired to being attacked by a stray dog.
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My wife found this character on her early morning garden inspection today. Approx 60 cm long, no visible signs of injury, no cats in the vicinity, so cause of death unknown.