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@mariner4life said in Straya!:
snakes generally won't fuck with you if you leave them alone
That "generally" bit doesn't reassure me.
I'm good here thanks, got stung by a wasp last week, way bad enough for me. You can keep the rest of your critters.
it's lucky that this country is mind-warpingly massive
It really is ay. I used to be SYD based and fly HKG- SYD very regularly, it made me laugh when the new cabin crew would come in ask "where are we?" which was code for "are we there yet?". I discovered that they didn't get "shut up Donkey" so I would reply " just entered Aus airspace".
"Great, not to far to go then".
The concept of time elapsed versing flight time did seem to mystify some of them.
We were about half way to SYD.
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No one has died in Australia from a spider bite in decades.
Even with snakes as long as you don't panic you've got hours. You just need to minimise movement.
Salties are creatures of habit.
Stay out of the water and there's no problem with sharks.
The most dangerous creatures here are the women.
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@Snowy you should have seen the size of the wasp i killed on the weekend. bigger than my finger. evil mother fucker.
The size of Queensland was starkly brought in to focus this time last year when we drove to the Gold Coast. After about 22 hours of driving we hadn't got out of Qld, but it was only another 900km to Sydney.
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@mariner4life funny you should mention taipans, which was the original inspiration for this thread, just had to find (and resize) photos ...
Anyway, this is Sammy:
Sammy decided to come and live with us. We are happy about that as it means we have a healthy and diverse natural environment in our backyard. Straya!
Bloke at work, who by all accounts has done numerous snake training things, advised Sammy was a coastal taipan (refer below). Which is awesome as they are only the third most venomous snake in the world (behind inland taipan and eastern brown). Various sources suggest coastal taipan venom can kill a human in 35 minutes. Which is cool as the ambulance and hospital is only 20 mins away (do the maths).
Taipans can also apparently actually see you, not just detect your movement like other snakes, and can move quicker than you run.
This is Misty:
This is Cleo:
Misty is lithe and athletic, and thick as two short planks.
Cleo is small and insignificant, and plotting world domination.Misty and Cleo are the illegitimate offspring of the promiscuity of one of Ms Boo Jr's buddy's farm cats and the local feral toms. Straya!
This is Sammy now:
We are sad. It appears Sammy was MURDERED! by Misty and Cleo.
We found dead Sammy being poked and prodded and tossed around like prey as cats do by Misty. And interestingly we originally found live Sammy as it was being poked and prodded by Cleo (oh bugger, she's got a lizard ... hang on ... that lizard doesn't have legs ... ).
We like Misty and Cleo.
Anyways ... old mate who reckoned it was a coastal taipan may have been mistaken. The 'What Snake is That?' FB page ( https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMDAwMDAyMjQ3NDQyMjpWSzoxMDAyMTE2NDkwMTgyNzc3 ) suggests it is a Yellow Faced Whip Snake, which isn't deadly (if indeed they are the same snake.)
Apparently multiple snakes in this part of the Bay.
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Pretty much almost stepped on this guy in the chicken shed who got stuck in the netting. I did the right thing and cut him free. A small Red-bellied black snake. I always seem to see them at the last minute and my brain thinks it is a piece of old tyre before the flight or fight instinct kicks in and I jump back and think "Fuck that was close"
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Just let me clarify this - you were happy with having the 3rd most venomous snake in the world living next to you and it can out run you (I acknowledge that you had a 15 minute time gap before one of you died, so it's all just fine) but personally I wouldn't feel very comfortable with that.
I also suspect that Misty and Cleo have more clues about snakes than the "bloke at work".
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Just let me clarify this - you were happy with having the 3rd most venomous snake in the world living next to you and it can out run you (I acknowledge that you had a 15 minute time gap before one of you died, so it's all just fine) but personally I wouldn't feel very comfortable with that.
I also suspect that Misty and Cleo have more clues about snakes than the "bloke at work".
Oh yeah. Fucking delighted.
Coincidentally, further to the above and post yesterday in the Podcast thread see link below I stumbled across just now.
Listen to the intro to see just how delighted you would be to have a coastal taipan anywhere in the vicinity.
"Conversations" , with Richard Fidler-Sarah Kanowski
I'm listening to the "Best of 2018: Hunting the deadly coastal taipan" episode from "Conversations" , presented by Richard Fidler-Sarah Kanowski - https://abclisten.page.link/76zfDfptyXKh44gb9. Available now through the ABC listen App - http://bit.ly/ABCradioApp -
Not snake related.
I have a 1-year-old collie/kelpie cross. mad as fuck. Great dog though. He doesn't bite or really excessively whine or bark. Kids love him, the Mrs cats(yes plural) fucken hate him but he loves them.
Anyway a few months ago, one night(11ish) I hear a bat/flying fox outside making a bit of a racket. There are a few fruit trees in my street so I didn't make much of it. Bats are always around. But then it got louder and then I could hear the dog growling. I got out of bed to have a look and my dog is having a fight with a huge fucking bat. There's some back and forth but the dog is getting the best of this thing and it's screaming. I intervene, on the wife's say so and a neighbour shouting at me to "sort it the fuck out". It suddenly started pissing down(I wish I was making this up). My back yard is landscaped chaos. Big fucken boulders everywhere, flax bushes, palm trees...a fucken obstacle course filled with golden orb spider webs. So Im out there trying not to walk into, face first, palm-sized spiders fending off a crazed dog, protecting a winged harbinger of germs and disease. Trying not to slip over in the fast forming puddles in my yard because there is no such thing as drainage in this country.
I had never minded Fruit Bats until that night. Close up they were kind of cute. However, seeing one walk across the ground in the ungodly manner that it did changed my perspective. If you are ever curious look up "bat walking" on youtube. Nightmarish stuff. There was a moment where I really had to almost belt the dog in order to get him off the bat and I never hit my dog. The weirdest thing happened though. The bat just kind of accepted that I was helping it and never bit me or swiped at me. I was able to pick it up and carefully place(throw) it over the fence to safety. Then I went inside and chopped both my hands off.
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i like how you gave your cats stripper names
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@mariner4life said in Straya!:
i like how you gave your cats stripper names
Blame the wife and 16 yo.
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@raznomore bats. Stinky virus ridden abominations.
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One thing I've noticed since moving here is just how hard spiders are compared to NZ.
I have no real issue with spiders, can have them crawl on my hands without too much of an issue (not so much if it takes me by surprise) and back in NZ or the UK if there were one in the house I'd be more likely to bring it outside than crush it. My partners over the years have generally been terrified so when they've been around and there is an issue with a spider the orders are generally to kill it.My first encounter here I was with a girlfriend and a spider was just sitting on an outside wall on a back deck, I get given the killing orders and give what I thought was a good enough tap with the jandal to take it out. Bloody thing didn't die, it landed on the deck a metre or so from me and I swear to god looked at me and ran straight at me. I half moved in fright and then remembering that I should still have the advantage here brought the hammer jandal down hard repeatedly.
Just last month I was setting up a security camera above my partners front door and I had another incident. Unbeknownst to us at the time due to the motion censor this was all recorded..I'd share it but I'm not sure my Mrs would be comfortable with some internet strangers looking down her cleavage.
Anyway I had just put the camera up in the right position when she gasped and looking up to the camera pointed out this big spider just up where I was a few seconds ago on a ladder. She gaps it quick inside and comes back with some bug spray giving me the 'kill order'. I got up the ladder and gave it a good spray, it falls to the ground and then just like the last incident it seemed to shake off the blow and this time ran toward my Mrs on the ground, she screams and moves out of the way it then shoots back up the wall toward my level on the ladder I start using the bug spray as a club and eventually pin it under the can. While I held it I get my Mrs to get my jandal and I think deliver some sweet vengeance eventually cutting it in two with a few blows.
Tough buggers here alright.
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Fuck bats, stinky squeeky fruit raiding vermin.
You aren't allowed to handle them without having the required shots, so be happy you aren't dead Raz.
Approx 47 million of them used to roost in the city, creating entire no-go zones. When the council tried to move them on smelly hippies descended and tried to save them. Just shoot the fluffybunnies and be done with it (hippies or bats, I'm cool with either).
About 6pm in Cairns there is a shift change, where the cockatoos come back from the forest, and the bats head out. It's a pretty cool sight.
But also fuck cockatoos, noisy, drunk flying, destructive fucks.
Straya!
