A snake in the grass.....

.... and it found its way into one of the bird houses. Damn.

My husband and I were on our way into town the other day, and we drove up towards the barn first to look at the wildflowers.  As my husband drove the car slowly up the road, I saw six or seven sparrows on the fence near the barn. The birds were just sitting there, looking at the bird house, which is usually occupied by a bluebird.

That particular house had been claimed by a sparrow a couple of weeks ago, and my husband had just recently taken a photo of the nest filled with five or six brown-speckled eggs.  So there were the sparrows the other day, sitting quietly and staring at the little wood bird house.  My eye followed the birds' line of vision, and there at the bird house, wrapped around the roof of the little house, was a brown snake. Of course, the snake's head was inside the bird house. Damn.

I told my husband what I saw (and I was surprised that I wasn't screaming in the car)..... Actually, I was whispering (so the snake wouldn't hear me?)....... and my husband backed up the car all the way to the driveway and went inside to get the rifle.  Needless to say, I didn't go back to the barn with him.  I heard the shots from the house... three shots.  The first shot got the back of the snake's body... the second shot got the front of the snake as he turned towards my husband.... and the third shot was just to 'make sure.'  (My husband told me all of that when it was all over.)  I was standing in the courtyard listening to the shots, then my husband came walking towards the house with thedead body of the snake wrapped around the tip of the rifle.

Thankfully, the snake got into the bird house while the eggs were still eggs, not hatchlings.  Either way, it's a loss for the birds.  And yes, we know there are thousands upon thousands of sparrows.... but there could have been bluebird eggs in that box, and those birds are protected by Texas because it's the 'state bird.'

Protected?  How in the world do you 'protect' these birds --- or any birds --- from snakes?  Our friends J&J have also found snakes in their bird houses... and have now gone to extreme measures to try and keep them out.  J bought some strips of wood with tacks sticking out (wood strips that carpet-layers use) and those are now fastened around the poles supporting the bird houses.  We don't know yet if that's going to work, but you would think that a snake wouldn't want to be impaled on hundreds of carpet-tacks. (And can you imagine walking on your property and tripping over a rock and landing against one of those tacked-up bird house poles?)

It's sometimes hard to walk around your own property here.  You have to keep one eye on the ground to watch for slithering snakes, and the other eye up in the trees to watch for hanging snakes, which leaves no eye left to search for spider webs that can be strung up overnight under rose arbors and low branches of mesquite trees.

Western boots and jeans are helpful for walking the property, but one of those air-tight astronaut suits might even be a better idea.