Snake Hunt

Hello.

Today being sunny, I decided that it was time to track down this snake that I saw last week. I decided this mostly because the majority of people I told about the snake didn't believe me, but also because I was just a little ashamed that instead of taking a photograph of the animal, I had run away like a little girl. I thought the best way to prove it would be to retrace my steps across the hill, find one of these snakes and snap a picture. After all, how hard could it be? I was barely fifteen feet onto the path when I stumbled across one last time.

And so I was to be found this afternoon tramping around the grass in the middle of a suburban housing estate, listening for slithering amongst the grass and looking out for flashes of bluey-greeny stuff in the corner of my eye. I proceeded up the path, moving slowly with my head bent and my eyes sharp. It was fairly quiet up there today, which can only be a good thing because, to the uninformed, it must have looked unnervingly like I was sweeping the park for land mines. When another person did hove into view, I simply pretended I was one of them; just a normal person out for a walk in the park, not an immigrant with a score to settle with a snake.

Many times I was convinced I had achieved my goal, only to find that I had tracked down a chocolate bar wrapper or a strip of blue fabric. The amount of bluey-greeny rubbish thrown out on that hill is staggering, that's all I can say. It's also damn near impossible to distinguish between the rustle of tall grass as a snake crawls through it and the rustle of tall grass which has been agitated by a gentle spring breeze. This led to many potential 'gotcha' moments, which instead turned out to be 'standing on a hill eye-balling a rock' moments, which are much less satisfying.

So, no snake photograph today. I saw any number of birds up there; pheasants, crows, cardinals, blackbirds, but, alas, no reptiles of any kind.

The hunt continues.