Close Encounters of the Scary Kind
Australian wildlife is a wild and wonderful mixture of vibrant colors, audacious sounds, and venomous threats. Although these realities always seem to be in tension here, this paradox manifested itself most blatantly today.
This morning I identified a Rainbow Lorakeet pecking around the tree next to my balcony. I soaked in its bright green, red, yellow and blue colors while listening to the multiple other varieties of birds I had not yet identified.
Forty-five minutes later, I was running the trail that follows the ridge behind the camp. Although the Aussies have both openly and implicitly mocked my poisonous snake and spider paranoia (which, I might add, I feel are completely justified), I was taking my usual precaution of scanning the trail several feet ahead to look for snakes.(I won't mention how many sticks I thought were snakes, thereby doing a quick bunny-like leap over them before recognizing my mistake). Despite my caution, there was a particularly steep portion of the trail that forced me to focus just on my feet in front of me. All of a sudden, I happened upon a very LARGE black snake on the left part of the trail, while I was running on the right. My adrenalin catapulted me forward in a gold-medal worthy triple jump and a loud "Oh my gosh!" flew out of my mouth. In response to my wild, jerking motions, the snake seemed equally startled and seemed to jump back away from the trail (do snakes jump? I now believe they do). I sprinted up the remainder of the trail, all the while gasping, "Oh my lands, oh my lands!" I stopped to catch my breath at the top and reflect on the size of the snake.
"It was the as thick as my upper arm and at least as long as my body!" I later exclaimed to J., our cook. She laughed at me.
"You Americans always exaggerate such things when you come over here!" She replied.
Well, whatever. After I looked up the description of the Red-bellied Black Snake, I felt justified in my claim:
"This snake is dangerously venomous but bites are rare because it is usually a placid and fairly docile snake, preferring to enact a lengthy bluff display with flattened neck and deep hisses rather than bite. It grows to a length of 2.5 metres, and is a very distinctive snake because of its simple and unvarying coloration."
After this description, the real question is, who had the scarier encounter, the snake or myself?
This morning I identified a Rainbow Lorakeet pecking around the tree next to my balcony. I soaked in its bright green, red, yellow and blue colors while listening to the multiple other varieties of birds I had not yet identified.
Forty-five minutes later, I was running the trail that follows the ridge behind the camp. Although the Aussies have both openly and implicitly mocked my poisonous snake and spider paranoia (which, I might add, I feel are completely justified), I was taking my usual precaution of scanning the trail several feet ahead to look for snakes.(I won't mention how many sticks I thought were snakes, thereby doing a quick bunny-like leap over them before recognizing my mistake). Despite my caution, there was a particularly steep portion of the trail that forced me to focus just on my feet in front of me. All of a sudden, I happened upon a very LARGE black snake on the left part of the trail, while I was running on the right. My adrenalin catapulted me forward in a gold-medal worthy triple jump and a loud "Oh my gosh!" flew out of my mouth. In response to my wild, jerking motions, the snake seemed equally startled and seemed to jump back away from the trail (do snakes jump? I now believe they do). I sprinted up the remainder of the trail, all the while gasping, "Oh my lands, oh my lands!" I stopped to catch my breath at the top and reflect on the size of the snake.
"It was the as thick as my upper arm and at least as long as my body!" I later exclaimed to J., our cook. She laughed at me.
"You Americans always exaggerate such things when you come over here!" She replied.
Well, whatever. After I looked up the description of the Red-bellied Black Snake, I felt justified in my claim:
"This snake is dangerously venomous but bites are rare because it is usually a placid and fairly docile snake, preferring to enact a lengthy bluff display with flattened neck and deep hisses rather than bite. It grows to a length of 2.5 metres, and is a very distinctive snake because of its simple and unvarying coloration."
After this description, the real question is, who had the scarier encounter, the snake or myself?
posted by Melody at
7:53 PM
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