I have had two fantastical beast sightings this week.

One is a partial sighting. In a 20cm view in a pile of spoiled hay, we watched in horror as a huge black snake squeezed through the small gap. It was already moving when I saw it, but it seemed to endlessly slide through the gap. How long was it!? Going by the girth of it, easily thicker than my wrist, it was a big snake.

What made my hair stand on end was that I had been walking exactly in that spot earlier. I had been filling a hole with spoiled hay, and I staggered over the broken piles of hay trying to smooth out the bumps and cavities. An hour later we had come back so I could show my wife the progress.

There's still more needed to fill the hole, but I won't be walking on it again. I'll just chuck the hay in as far as I can, and sort out the neatening up next year after it has rotted down and collapsed further.

And the other fantastical beast?

At somebody else's place I was amazed to see an enormous wasp, bigger than anything I have seen before. I am kicking myself now, as I watched it for a minute, then as an afterthought took a photo. Now I know I should have either taken a video, taken a closer photo, or simply swatted it.

My notoriously crap phone camera took the shot, which later proved to be useless. Its that time of year when European wasps start showing up. This was not a European wasp, but maybe some of the behaviors, like a queen starting a nest, were similar.

This thing was very big. You could not have put it in a matchbox. Maybe a cigarette packet. It had vivid orange/red and yellow stripes, a massive black sting. In the photo it is brown.

Yes. It doesn't really look like a giant hornet with bright red and tellow stripes, does it?

This image is taken from the >Smithsonian website shows a locally captured Murder Hornet.

There's other photos that show it as more a vivid set of colors, but this dark brown image doesn't disagree with my lousy photo.

I watched it for a bit longer, then went home. I looked it up. The only thing I could find that looked similar was the Giant Asian Hornet…the Murder Wasp that is invading the USA. Notionally its not in Australia, but it’s a notifiable pest. That is, there's penalties if you don't report a sighting within 24 hours.

So I checked with the property manager. He agreed I should report it, but I am not sure he believed me that such an exotic beast was on his property. The hotline took my details then got me to fill in an online form. A day or so later I got a response that I probably hadn't seen a Murder Hornet, and it was more likely to be this other thing - that looks nothing like what I saw. And is half the size.

It would be easy to take offence, but I expect they get a lot of crank reports. I am kicking myself I didn't get a better record, or capture it.

I guess we'll know in a few weeks….if it was the hornet I thought it was. They are aggressive and attack people, but the "Murder" relates to their capacity to wipe out beehives. There's plenty of beehives nearby. Once the hornets breed up they'll be working the hives and everyone will be upset.

Time to get the wasp traps working.