When you live in an old stone house you have got to accept that you will not be the only occupant. It’s just a matter of when you meet the other lodgers.
As usual I find myself looking into a hole when something starts looking back at me.
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to catch the little flickering black tongue that repeatedly tested the air.
I was please to see him come out as he will quickly return if he feels any movement.
You will note that precaution has won and the last little bit of the tail is still in the hole. Well after that I must have moved and he was off like a shot back into the hole.
He does move fast and his speed is what gives him his common name of Western Whipsnake – fast as a whip.
We’ve had a couple of sunny days and he likes to sunbathe at the edge of the house. He is well hidden by the bunches of white Alyssum that grow in the cracks, and O.K. the odd bit of chickweed too. Reptiles and Amphibians of France say that they hatch at about 30 centimetres and that was my guess of his length although I am very surprised that they would hatch as big as that. It would mean that my lodger is this year’s hatchling which seems a bit early.
These snakes are common throughout France and we have seen larger ones before (A Snake in the House). They are not aggressive snakes nor are they venomous so they are very welcome to share the garden with everybody else.
This picture was taken five years ago and the snake made a remarkably rapid retreat mounting the wall vertically and disappearing over the roof.
It was a month ago exactly that we had another visitor in almost the same position on the wall. A bat took up residence behind the shutters of the living room window that we leave almost permanently in the open position.
The bat only stayed a couple of nights, probably put off by people taking photographs of him but I don’t really think that behind the shutters would have been a good site for a permanent roost.
a french garden 