matthijs_hollanders's Identifications

The Noisy Miners and the Butcher Birds were creating lots of noise, so I went to investigate and found this python climbing onto the roof. As soon as they knew they had gained my attention, the birds flew off and left me to handle the situation!

Sighting and photos (c) lisa_wynn.
Field Notes - I am a wildlife rescuer for Sydney Wildlife and today I got a call saying that a man had caught a snake in his house and put it in a bag and it needed relocation. I got to the house and he showed me to the back patio where he opened a sealed cooler and pulled out of it a sealed ziploc bag within which he had somehow managed to wrap up this tiny juvenile green tree snake in paper towels. Amazingly enough, the snake was alive and uninjured, and the man was relieved to know it wasn’t venomous. He had previously been quite sure that it was a dangerously venomous snake. As a snake catcher, I never cease to be amazed by the strange things people do with snakes. If he thought it was venomous, then why did he handle it so extensively? I mean he literally packaged it up as neatly as a sandwich, before sealing it in an airtight enclosure. I don’t know that I could have done a neater wrapping job myself, and I have no fear of snakes (particularly one as innocuous as this nonvenomous and nonaggressive baby snake). Anyway, happily I had the chance to educate them a little about snakes, and then I relocated this little beauty to nearby bushland.