Snake Encounters

I remember, growing up in Nigeria, that snakes were a fact of life, everyone had met one at least once and of course the stories of the encounters grew in the telling.  Our house in Warri was in land reclaimed from the swamp, we had a bungalow set in a large garden surrounded by drainage ditches. One morning when I was away in boarding school my mother looked out to see my 6 year old sister frozen in fear as she was locked in the gaze of a spitting cobra.  Our mother and the cook dispatched the beast.  That was not the only snake, we would frequently get visitors to the garage and patio and we could hear them slithering about in the roof, the snakes were mostly cobras and black mambas.  My mother was a dab hand at dispatching them with a hoe to the head, often helped by our cat Kipper, who, on seeing an intruder, would set up a loud wailing to alert us then play with it until it was coiled in knots before stepping aside to allow my mother delivered the coup de grace.

One very full snake, sated and still in a tree in Mulu

There was considerable local mythology attached to snakes, whenever we killed one we had to cut off the head and tail which could not be buried in the same grave as or in line with the body - if we did we were told that the spirit of Mammy Wata (a river goddess/mermaid) would reanimate the snake which would come to seek revenge for its death.

Snake encounters were frequent.  One family nearby had a mamba in the roof that found its way into the living room and the house had to be evacuated until the snake was killed and yet more friends had baby cobras in their lavatory, the whole experience set their young daughter's potty training back quite considerably! Another family lost their parrot to a hungry snake that managed to get into the cage.  The really big snakes such as pythons were a much rarer sight although I do remember one being hit by a car near the company clinic.  I don't recall meeting snakes in Lagos, the ones that survived in the city were probably rather shy of humans nor did we meet any snakes during our time in Turkey (spiders were another matter) or Venezuela and Kazakhstan was too cold for them.  In fact other than Nigeria I have seen more snakes in the UK than anywhere else.

Here in Malaysia I expected to see a lot of snakes but other than in the zoo and one in a tree on a trip to Mulu national park I have not seen any. I know they were there in Miri, indeed this huge Python was found just round the corner from our house, but we had no encounters at all which suited me down to the ground.

One long city snake!

Imagine my surprise then to turn around from my computer this morning to see, through the window, a snake coiled up next to the laundry drying on my patio.  He was beautiful and, I think, a juvenile as he was no more than a metre long, very thin with a tiny head.  His eyes were very big in his head which was an apple green although the back of his neck was red.  His body had green and black stripes. He held my gaze for quite some time but as I was holding the baby I could not get a picture.  By the time I had put the baby down he slithered back on to the grass but stayed there long enough for me to get a, very poor quality, 'phone shot.  I tried to grab my camera but he had moved away.   I then sent the dogs into the garden to frighten him away from the house.  The cat is, sadly, too young to set against a snake.  I don't possess a hoe or any other implement suitable for getting rid of snakes.

Thank goodness the one in our garden is small
you can just see him in the centre of the very poor
photograph.

We called the exterminators who said that given the description they did not think he was poisonous.  They can not lay sulphur (the preferred deterrent) around the house because we have a lot of rain at present and it will just be washed away.  I have decided to leave dog mess in the garden for the moment and scatter  kitty litter around the patios (snakes hate cat litter) and mothballs by the doors.  Anyone going out to do laundry (our washing machine is outside) will have to stamp their feet.

It is a fact of life that snakes are around us all the time but we don't know it.  I suspect he lives next door as the house is uninhabited and he can enjoy an undisturbed life.  I don't want to do him any harm but equally I don't want him to think that he can enjoy my garden as part of his territory or getting into the house.  Snakes are beautiful, fascinating creatures but not ones I want to get to know intimately.  

Posted on the Animal Tales linky hosted by Eco-Gites of Lenault

Click the picture below for more posts on life in Malaysia