I have a lurker.
I’ve been so hung up on snakes. It was only a matter of time, as soon as I let the thought go, a snake would appear. Isn’t it always that way? You think of a friend, you forget the thought, and doesn’t it happen that friend calls you, mails you, shows up magically somehow?
A cape cobra shows up on the grassy patch outside my kitchen window.
I shut the dogs inside. The horses are having a sleep on the stoep, so I am the only one who watches this beautiful bronzy- gold snake taste its way into a pile of wood.
Perhaps I should have had the cobra removed? I have the resource, one of my closest friends in the area is a snake handler. However, if I had arranged for the snake to be removed or taken out, I wouldn’t have learned more about the magic of my environment as I did over the following days.
While having a coffee on the stoep, Rosie starts to bark manically. I know immediately it is a snake from the tone of her voice. There is a small pile of junk about 12 metres from where I am sitting. I call Rosie back. Note to self: if ever my dogs are engaged with a snake, do not call them back. When I call, Rosie’s attention immediately whips to me, a perfect opportunity for a snake to strike.
Rosie comes to lie next to me and we sit and watch the junk pile. A fiscal shrike darts past us and perches itself on the fence above the snake and sets up a loud ‘tweeeee tweeeee’, alerting the neighbourhood to the unwelcome presence in the area. The fiscal shrike is also known as a ‘butcher bird’, so nicknamed as it impales its prey onto barbed wire fences. Some people say this is his way of making biltong (jerky, but more delicious!)
FISCAL SHRIKE by Martiens Mulder
This resourceful little bird watches the snake’s every move and I record his voice for future reference. I am amazed that not many other birds come to have a look, just two teeny brown jobs and a bright green and scarlet sunbird. It is riveting to witness. I don’t get an actual siting of the snake, but because of Rosie and the fiscal shrike I know it to have been there. I suspect it to be the lurker and if the fiscal shrike is to be believed, Lurker disappears into Meanie Man’s property.
The following morning, I am reading in bed and hear the loud call, “tweeeee, tweeeee.” I look up, perch my reading glasses on my nose and see the fiscal shrike in the tree through Zac’s window. Lurker must be back? I check my recording and match it to the alarm call the fiscal shrike is sounding now. I go into the bathroom to get a better view, and sure enough there is the long cape cobra! I feel a bit like Zac, for I sit on the edge of the bath, feet in the bath and watch the tale unfold from the window. Lurker taste tests her way to the shed. Half her body goes up the side of the shed testing, testing her way. Wide-eyed, I watch as the brave little fiscal shrike divebombs the snake until it hides from the attack under a scrap piece of furniture in which I keep all my chicken paraphernalia. But wait there is more! When Lurker is satisfied my little bodyguard has gone, she heads for the open door of the chicken coop! I sit on the edge of the bath with my hands over my open mouth, imagining feathers flying. There are two hens in the coop who are mothering one baby between them and two hens sitting on the ground on eggs. Lurker slithers right past the hens doing a recce of the perimeter of the coop. Dove, one of the mothers seems interested and against my repeated, murmured wishes, ‘No no no no no no!’ goes to have a look at the snake. The snake seems very eager to get out, which she does easily, forcing her way through the bottom of the chicken mesh. I am gobsmacked. I can’t believe how calm the hens are, except for Dove, not one of them move a muscle. What a movie!
Unlike Monsieur Mongoose who just stepped out of a salon, Lurker thankfully doesn’t seem to be that excited about the high-class restaurant that moved in while she was in hibernation.
It is nice to know that I have a little bodyguard in the form of the fiscal shrike. Now I am doubly blessed, as I have a big bodyguard too. On a previous property, a few years ago, a massive boerboel forced his way through my fence. My adrenalin spiked and it was Queenie who read me. She calmly edged closer to the giant dog pretending to graze and in a flash, she rolled him, tap dancing all around the prostrate, terrified dog. No need to say, he never returned.
The animals and birds have their environment waxed and worked out. I just have to pay attention, have courage and try to catch up!
I like to think of Lurker’s appearance as an interesting illustration, for I have also been thinking a lot about money. It really has been the year of ‘Insufficient Funds’. Money opportunities just can’t find the way to me because I think about money all the time, the good, the bad, the ugly. The lack, the lack, the lack. I need to let my money stress go.
Let it go.
APPRECIATIONS
Martiens, Thank you so much for supplying me with a beautiful pic of my little bodyguard.
