I take a lot of photos.
Like, some days there are thousands of photos that make their way from the camera and onto my computer.
I also take a lot of photos on my phone, either because I don’t have my camera or because the “burst” feature on my phone will work better for a given situation…like capturing the quickness of chickens, the romping of goats, or the tornadoes of toddlerhood. Plus, there’s the instant gratification of an iPhone photo in addition to my affinity for micro-blogging on Instagram.
Never did I think, though, that looking through photos on my phone would bring us to realize a horrible danger that had been hanging out in our barn.
And no, I’m not talking about that danger of the non-dangerous Bullsnake.
I’m talking about the dangers of bird netting in relation to Bullsnakes (and who knows how many other creatures).
See, yesterday, when I took the below pictures with the intention of putting them up on Instagram, the light was so bad in the barn (and I didn’t want to get too close and piss off the amazing snake whose been eating all the mice in the barn) that I just took several pictures without really knowing what I was capturing.
I cropped and filtered the shot and stuck it up on Instagram.
: : : WARNING: Yes, more snake pictures will follow : : :
Later, though, upon closer inspection, it became clear that our lovely snake was in serious trouble (click each photo to enlarge):
Yep, this lovely guy was all twisted up in a small section of bird netting that was stuck to an old piece of lattice that has been stuck in the barn for who knows how many years.
Luckily, help was nearby.
I saw that Jonathan (the guy who has his lovely cows and horses grazing on our lower field) was next door helping the neighbors establish a garden area so I gave him a call and asked him to help us save the poor guy.
It’s good thing, too, because that snake was so wrapped up in the netting that he surely would have died within a couple of days had we not seen him.
The netting was literally cutting into his body.
Jonathan got him free and put him back in the barn where we’d hoped he’d stay, but he had other plans and was ready for a new home:
Good ending to a good story, right?
Yes…except that, in pulling out the lattice, we discovered that not one, but two other snakes had gotten caught in that netting and died and we didn’t even know it 🙁
Ugh…
So, the moral of the story is that bird netting is to snakes what six-pack rings are to birds and sea animals:
No good, very bad, super dangerous, traps.
So sad.
And now we have even more reason to get into the places on the property that need to be cleaned up (both with and without our Landlady).
xoxo,
M
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Good neighbors are priceless! I’m glad you were able to rescue him!
Jessie recently posted…Why So Grumpy Chicken?
I couldn’t agree more (on both accounts)!
Poor snakes! I am so glad you could rescue the bullsnake. He’s beautiful. You have inspired me to get out and look more closely at what we have going on around here. The previous owners left so much trash that it’s a wonder anything survived.
Robin recently posted…If we were having coffee: Gloomy weather edition
I hear you! We’ve been feeling pretty stuck about what we can and can’t clean up because so much of it all doesn’t belong to us. Time to just do it though.
Hope you’re having a lovely weekend, Robin!!!