nAnimal

Guess who’s coming for dinner? The world’s second most venomous snake | Annabelle Hickson

October 11, 2023

An Australia eastern brown snake
The Australia eastern brown snake is described as being an alert, nervous species that often reacts defensively if surprised or cornered. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

By Annabelle Hickson

They say you can’t kill a brown snake because it’s a native animal, and that’s illegal. And that you definitely shouldn’t kill one with a shovel. And that guinea fowls are meant to scare snakes away. And that blue tongue lizards eat snake eggs.

But what are you to do when you’re in the kitchen chopping onions for dinner and the second-most venomous snake in the world slithers in?

To be clear, I did not kill it, although I did try. I jumped up on the kitchen bench and hurled my kitchen knife at it, Villanelle-style. But I missed.

The Drover’s Wife hadn’t seen her husband for six months when a snake slithered into her hut, but I had seen my husband six minutes earlier, on his way to the shower. So instead of dealing with it myself, I screamed and screamed until he heard me.

Ed ran into the kitchen, naked and frantic, convinced someone had died. He was visibly relieved when he saw me up on the kitchen bench pointing at the snake – screaming “there’s a snake” – so much so I thought he was going to get back in the shower.

“Someone could still die,” I yelled. “Get some shoes on and get a shovel. Or a gun. Or Ash.”

Ash is our incredibly competent neighbour. He says things like: “If a brown snake puts its head down, flattens it and looks you in the eye, you know it’s about to strike.” Or: “If they get injured, they sometimes bite themselves so they die faster.” That last sentence I haven’t even begun to process.

Naked Ed went to find Ash or a gun or a shovel. I stayed on top of the bench to keep an eye on the snake while the children, who had been running outside in their swimmers, huddled on the trampoline. The snake slithered behind the kitchen dresser, sticking just its head out, presumably to see what we would do next. And we all waited.

If I sound over-dramatic, here is some context.

We live on a farm an hour away from a tiny hospital. Our house is chaotic, with piles of laundry and Lego and rooms with no doors.

If I had let that snake get beyond the kitchen and into the house, with all the lovely piles for it to curl up in, I could never again be sure we weren’t cohabitating with it. I did not want to live with a brown snake.

The spotted quoll that lives under the house, fine. But I draw the line at a snake.

There have been precedents. A bigger brown snake the day before in the kitchen doorway, which thankfully slithered back into the garden when it heard me coming. And a few years ago we had a whole series of snakes inside.

Peak freak-out was when my youngest daughter had been busy cleaning the bedroom she shared with her brother. Their bedroom didn’t have a door. I am not sure what happened to it, or if it was ever there at all, but such was the situation when she came out to get me from the kitchen to look at her good work.

“Shut your eyes, Mum, no peeking, I have a surprise for you” as she led me by the hand down the hall.

We rounded the corner and paused at the threshold of the bedroom. “Surprise, Mum, open your eyes!”

I did as instructed and there before us was an enormous king brown snake, coiled with its head lifted and looking at us.

Screaming, running and shovels ensued. For months after, as I tucked her into bed, Harriet would ask me “will the snakes get me tonight?”. That year, my son’s only request for Christmas was that Santa give him a door for the bedroom. Unfortunately, the door opening was not a standard size and Santa couldn’t work it out.

I did take other preemptive measures. I bought a flock of guinea fowl. After a year or so living in the tree outside the kitchen, with zero snakes inside, the flock one day moved to the neighbours’ garden. It was hard not to take personally. Then I bought a Jack Russell puppy, but fell madly in love with it and couldn’t bear the idea of it being snake-bait. In the end, it wasn’t the snakes I needed to be worried about, but rather the trucks on the road, RIP dear Bob. And then I bought those solar-powered vibrating things you stick in the soil around your house, but like everything left outside, they just seemed to deteriorate over time into relics of something once functional.

And so here we are again. Harriet is worried about snakes getting her at night, I’m googling “guinea fowl”, “Jack Russell puppies” and “screen doors that shut”, while the older children have never been so happy to go back to boarding school.

Ash and Ed and a shovel came to the rescue this time. But perhaps I should work on my knife skills for the next.