bigpete wrote:Larry wrote:That is pretty cool. I would have probably hit it with a spade thinking it was a baby snake. Im a bit paranoid after a couple of close encounters last week.
And that would be incredibly sad and unwarranted
Never understood the fear of snakes, myself.
I understand/appreciate that people get scared ****** when they see anything snake-ish(seen people do it lots of times, myself.).
But I've dont understand it.
First thing about a potential threat, is to understand as much as you can about it.
Thats when you find that many snakes are either harmless, or not snakes at all.
And they do an awful lot for our ecology.
We get Burtons Legless Lizards, and Blind Snakes here, as the most common two types of legless lizards.
Burtons eat small insects, and Blind Snakes eat ants.
Burtons try VERY hard to pretend they are snakes, by threatening to strike, and doing all the big, Bad Bitey Snakey stuff.
But they have a distinctive pointed head, ear-holes, and a non-forked fleshy tongue.
And they Blink...
Hard to take them too seriously, though I always express shock and awe at their efforts...
Point is; the best thing anyone can do with fear of any type of animal, is get to understand the animal.
We get HEAPS of Australian Tarantula spiders (pretty sure these are Selencosmia Cressipes).
Scarey as pluck to see(size of your hand), and they move like greased lightning when they want to.
People get freaking wide-eyed, when you tell them these spiders are as common as Landcruisers in this part of the world.
And yet; we barely ever see them.
What do they eat?
Locusts and Grasshoppers, along with a few other ground-based creepy-crawlies.
But they dont deserve being flogged to death when encountered.
We had a young bloke working here about 12 years back; used to get sweaty just talking about snakes.
It seemed like an awful waste of energy, when he wasnt even prepared to identify the snakes BEFORE he got wound up about them..
I understand keeping big-bitey snakes out of a homestead area; lost count of the King Browns I've nobbled trying to enter the house.
I dont feel bad about it; they wont accept 'NO'.
But they are just chasing the smell of mice.
I dont kill them when I meet them out in the paddock, as they have a role to play.
But I draw the line at stepping on one in the living room in the middle of the night(Thankfully hasnt happened for some years..).
But the first thing I do, is to identify the animal in question.
My 2 cents..
The orchestra was something else. And the combination of a suprano and good tenor cant be beaten. 
The Phantom of the Opera is my favourite live show. Auditory bliss. I think I need to see it a 4th time after this.
