We all know that some people seem to be smarter than others, so I guess it shouldn’t come as any big surprise that some snakes should be smarter than other snakes.
Whilst relaxing on the lanai, I saw what appeared to be a piece of black tubing hitting against the mesh of the enclosure. When I looked more closely I saw what was obviously a demented black garden snake trying to shred itself through the mesh to get outside with zero chance of success. Said snake was of a goodly size. When it comes to snake sizes, there are small snakes and then there are ‘call somebody to deal with this’ snakes. This one was not very big in circumference, but it certainly would extend way beyond a 12” ruler. However, donning a pair of thick gloves, I bravely decided to relocate this obviously stupid snake. Having caught it with minimal damage to me, the gloves or the snake, I went through the lanai gate so that I could return it to the garden environment and we would all be happy. I dropped the snake on the grass expecting it to slither off into the bushes, but no! It did an about face, nipping through my feet and made like Houdini down the nearest drain. “ Rather you than me”, I said to its tail end, and went back inside the screened enclosure. It wasn’t an hour later when this snake reappeared on the other side of the lanai, and made a bee line (or should that be snake line) for the same piece of screen only to repeat the whole process! I can only assume that the snake had belted through the ground level drainage system, once again coming up outside the lanai, had maybe managed to flatten itself under the screen door to get back inside and repeat the whole process of trying to make like a piece of string cheese at the same place as before. I can hear the dissidents right now. How do you know it was the same snake? Well, I didn’t check its passport photo, but it was about the same size and girth as the former dipstick snake, and this one wasn’t over endowed with smart cells either. This time, the snake was removed and probably had its internal GPS altered when it was unceremoniously lobbed over the fence into the semi wilderness back there. Now I have stared at this corner of the screen enclosure to try and fathom what was so fascinating that this snake would twice try to force its way through the mesh! It must have been the same snake – surely there can’t be two of them that are so lacking in smarts! So far, so good, but whatever the attraction was outside the corner of my lanai, I’d rather the snakes kept quiet about.