Interesting Memorial Day Weekend

The D Space

It was an interesting memorial day weekend. Interesting because what happenned in our backyard.

Lets say it involved, some birds and the Austin police department.

It all started just after breakfast , when i heard a lot of birds in our back yard. i thought that they were fighting each other for the bird feed..but i didn't see any of them around the feeder.
So i went outside, and there were a couple of blue jays and a few grackles going absolutely nuts.. ...there was obviously something on one of our oak trees that was bothering the heck out of them, and it took me a full 5 minutes of astute observation, and then i saw it..

Welcome to Texas.

Say hello to the Texas tree snake. It was curled up in a branch about 2o feet high, on the edge of one of our oak trees, just on top of our backyard wall. If he fell from there it was a 50/50 chance of him falling in our yard. But he wasn't going anywere . The birds weren't letting him move.

Our only other experience with snakes was with this one The Texas Coral snake , which is venomous, but the one we saw was around 8 inches, and is not too dangerous except for smaller kids.

So we went inside and called Animal control, who said we should call pest control (which was closed) , and so we then called the non emergency 311 for the austin police department.
The dispatcher told us to keep a watch on the snake but the APD called back to say that they do not respond calls about snakes unless they are trying to enter the house, or already inside :)

So Fiona found the number of another pest control. Its a long weekend and snakes are fairly common in Texas, so this guy had me describe the snake to him. yellow background with black diamonds. Diamondback? Rattlesnake? Well turns out that our friend was a Texas Rat Snake . Non Venomous. But it was between 4 and 5 feet long. and he had now moved lower and was in a branch only 8 feet , and now well within our yard, but still in the tree. And what if i hadn't described him right ?

And he was starting to move. The birds were gone. i watched him slither from one oak tree to the next, around 8 feet above the ground, on very slender branches. The pest control dude said that these snakes are useful because they eat the same food as rattlesnakes, and so prevent rattlesnakes from feeding in these areas. "leave him to do what he does best" was the advice i got.
Yeah. Right. Easy to forget about a 5 foot snake slithering on top of you while you are in your backyard. NOT!!!!
i was about to go in and tell fiona what i had been advised when lo and behold, there was an APD officer standing there. yay!
So i guess they did file a dispatch. Whats more is that this officers partner, was a trained snake catcher. She arrived 5 minutes later, and asked for an old pillow case.
And a ladder.
Her partner asked her if she was gonna use the long stick you use for catching snakes. "naaaahh this guy is a rat snake, ,i'll just use my hands..."

"Your hands? Do you need gloves? i have gloves"

Again, welcome to Texas.

"naaah, even if they bite it don't hurt much."

Two minutes later, she caught him by the head. Her first words were "Wow, he's beautiful".
He was hanging on to the tree by his tail, but eventually they got all of him in. Fiona, Rhea and I stood there fascinated.

You need the pillow case back?

Uh...No!!! please keep it. What will you do with the snake??

(softly and grinning) probably keep it ...

Only in Texas.....