Yes, we see more snakes than someone living in suburbia. But this year....phew! So many!

I recently wrote about an eastern brown in the shed that Kobby flushed out of hiding, straight at me.

But there have been a lot more. Down by the river, across the road on the way to the house.

And in the vegetable garden. In the compost bin.

Its a good spot. Warm at night, out of the rain, a natural attractor for lizards and frogs. And rats and mice, but I am told red bellied black snakes don't go for mice.

This one has been in the compost bin for a couple of weeks. We have three bins running in the vegie garden, side by side, and the snake has been in all three. I find it when I lift the lid to dump some household scraps. Over the last few weeks I have worked out a rough timetable.

The snake seems to sleep there, gets up and out and about by 10 to avoid the hot part of the day. Not sure what time it goes to bed. Usually once I lift the lid and look in, the next time I look in its gone. Its not surprising really.....its pitch dark in there, and suddenly the lid comes off and its very bright. The snake doesn't move when I look in, but once its dark again it disappears.

I'm all for living with wildlife, but my daughter and grand-daughter are regular visitors to the vegie garden. There are rows of raspberries right next to the compost bins, and so they are walking the same turf.

So I have been speaking with a local chap who relocates snakes. Its a conversation that has gone on for a couple of weeks. He lives about 45 minutes away, so isn't keen on coming unless he knows the snake is visible. I don't see the snake every day, so we can't just assume its going to be in the bin in a convenient day. If I lift the lid and check, then lift it again and check it again say half an hour later, the snake is usually not there on the second check.

But today it all aligned. This time instead of checking a second time, I stood by the bin and watched that nothing came out.

When Gibbo arrived I explained where we were up to.

He looked in the bin, Nothing. We then checked the other two bins. Nothing.

We then lifted the bin off the compressed compost, and he poked through the fibrous pile. Bingo! By hand he grabbed the tail of the snake and lifted it up and tipped it into the snake-catcher's bag. It was shorter than I expected for such a thick body, and seemed pretty quiet, but once in the bag it took off and ejected back out of the bag. While I watched, gob-smacked. he dropped to the ground on all fours and reached into the asparagus bed where the snake had fled and dragged it out again by the tail.

It was less co-operative this time, but he got it in the bag again, spun the bag and tied it off.

I paid him, and off they went. Took maybe 10 minutes. What a relief.

Except....

Yesterday, because my daughter was coming to pick some berries, I had gone ahead to check for snakes. I timed it just as the black snake was heading out for the day, and I watched it wriggled into the raspberry beds. We focused on blueberries instead.

Later in the afternoon I went back to check again, still trying to build a profile of what/when. Nothing in the bin. As I put the lid down a movement behind me caught my eye, and I saw a long eastern brown snake wriggle away from me into the raspberry beds.

So yes, the black snake is gone.