On the first day of spring 2021 I was called out to a rural property 20 minutes north of Bendigo for a brown snake the had been sited on a regular basis.
This day it was spooked by the property owner and fled down a near by hole.
Having assessed my options, I decided to have a go at carefully digging the snake up.
After about 30 minutes of gentle digging I found the snake curled up at the end of this ‘question mark shaped’ tunnel system that was about 70cm in length, several weeks later I received a call from the same property owner.
This time another snake was sighted on the property, and it too had disappeared down another nearby tunnel, there was no doubt in my mind that this cluster of tunnels may have been connected.
What had created them in the first place was not so obvious, it was being occupied by a colony of yellow and black large ants, however it was too small for rabbits and there were no signs of rodent activity or traces.
Given the previous snake was easily dug up I decided to once again give it a go.
The tunnels however just went on and on. After a good hour of digging and finding more chambers I decided to call it a day and re visit the property the following day.
Well, it paid off...
After checking other areas of the property for additional snakes the homeowner called out to me “There it is”.
Sure enough this big bertha of a brown snake was heading back to the tunnels.
I grabbed my hook and bag and stalked the snake before swiftly tailing it. Unfortunately, the big chonker managed to shoot down the hole about a 3rd of the way down. It was a Mexican stand-off, almost ‘tug of war’ type situation however in this situation holding onto the snake is pointless and can cause the animal stress or injury.
I let it go. It was down the tunnel and I though “all good, now I know its in there ill just dig it up” HA!
Oh man, the tunnels. These tunnels will be the death of me.
I dug and dug and following the chambers. I decided to have a good crack at following them partly out of curiosity but also because my ego was now slightly bruised.
Hours passed and the weather had started to turn. This snake has been sighted on a regular basis so here I am, revisiting the property once again.
Stay tuned for chapter 3!
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