Fairy wren snake alarm

Coming back from closing up the chook shed on Friday, I heard a little bird tweeting like crazy on the fence near the water tank. It was a fairy wren, with his bright blue feathers and pretty song. David had heard him too, and it turned out he had something to be chirping so furiously about. A dark shadow was hanging out near the water tank - snake alert! David fetched the hose and directed water at the snake until it slid out of the yard and off down the driveway.

I don't know if it was a tiger snake or a copperhead, and it wasn't a large snake, but I don't really care. I don't mind snakes but we don't want them close to the house or in our yard in case one of the dogs decides it looks interesting and gets bitten. We'll have to listen out for the fairy wren alarm in future. I was talking to a woman on the weekend whose family has lost a couple of dogs to snake bite, including a big St. Bernard... terribly sad. I've mentioned before that Tasmania only has three kinds of snakes, all of them venomous but very unlikely to kill you. It turns out that despite Australia's reputation for deadly critters, our snakes are a lot less dangerous than people think.