The scales lifted

The other day I saw a snake in the wild for the first time.  Mrs Walles and I were heading down to the supermarket and we passed it on the road.  Two women had stopped and seemed to be trying to encourage it off the road into a small patch of woods nearby.  A couple of things disturbed me about this.

1. It was a big snake.  Okay, so it wasn't an anaconda, but it wasn't a teeny little grass snake either.  It was substantial, maybe a metre long or more, black and for all I knew venomous.  There is a way to tell the difference but I didn't get a good enough look at it anyway.  Anyway, even Mrs Walles thought it was a big snake, and she's lived in wilder woods than these ones.  More worrying, though, is...
2. ...the patch of woods they were encouraging it into happens to be one that I frequent when I walk into town (which admittedly I haven't been doing nearly enough recently, and this won't help me change my ways) and which I usually wander through in my sandals smiling genially at squirrels and what-not that cross my path.

So I'll be wearing shoes from now on on my excursions, not that that would save me if I scared a dangerous snake, it's more of a psychological thing.

I've just looked up snakes and find that the tell tale signs of a venomous snake are the size and shape of its head and the shape of its pupils.  Though if I come across anything slithering in my vicinity I won't be worrying about these finer points of herpetology, I'll be finding another vicinity to be in with all possible haste.  I also find that what we saw was very likely an eastern kingsnake, a non-venomous constrictor, and that there are only three venomous species in Pennsylvania, which is somewhat reassuring.


Mrs Walles made the excellent point that dealing with a snake is just like dealing with the other wildlife here, even the cute and cuddly-looking ones.  The squirrels may be cute and all but I wouldn't want to corner one, and most of my dealings with them occur with a pane of glass between us.

So if this Kiwi comes upon any slithering beasties he'll be backing off first and asking questions later.  I imagine I'll be too surprised to do anything else. Coming from a land famously devoid of serpents, the possibility of encountering a snake just doesn't enter my mind.  If I did come across one my surprise would scarcely be greater if it started talking and offering me apples.