Not Wanting to Interfere

  Investigating alarm calls is nothing unusual.  Investigating alarm calls from the critter world is not unusual for me.  I always do.  Let the blue jays start their cacophony and I grab the camera and head towards the noise.  Something is amiss if a dozen jays are causing a ruckus.  This morning the birds did just that.  Down behind the shed almost at the water's edge, the jays were joined by cardinals, thrashers and a few titmice.  All the birds were in a frenzy which could only mean a predator was nearby.  A cat, fox, snake, hawk, owl or even a couple of crows can solicit such actions and I was determined to see just what had crept into the dense underbrush.  While traipsing through the clumps of palmettos can be an edgy process, I figured that anything there would have already vacated the area with all of the turmoil overhead.  I pushed through and stared at the bay tree that held at least two dozen birds. My eyes adjusted to the shadowy depths of the underbrush.  Just a few feet in front of me was the culprit.  A snake was coiled on a small branch that was just about head high.  What a beauty!  The rat snake was a young thing and not nearly as large as the female that visited the rose arbor so often last summer.  This little guy was maybe only two and a half feet in length but was large enough to raid a bird's nest.  

  While all of the other birds stayed high in the trees surrounding the snake, the male thrasher led the attack on the poor hapless snake.  His ladylove was thirty feet away guarding their nest of four hatchlings. The thrasher relentlessly attacked the snake.  He was fearless as he pecked, plummeted and clawed at the serpent.  The snake regarded the bird as a mere nuisance.  After each attack, the snake would coil around and face the bird.  It would strike even though that was a futile effort on its part.  Since rat snakes are nonvenomous, a bite would be just a scratch and the bird would be no worse for wear.  This snake was far too small in comparison to the thrasher to do much damage but the bird knew that the nest of little ones was in danger.  

  Without interfering, I watched the battle between the two critters. Neither wanted to relinquish its territory to the other.  One feared for its family.  The other knew supper was nearby.  It was soon apparent that neither the bird nor the snake was ending the standoff any time soon so I eased my way back out of the brush and headed back to the house. Letting nature take it course is a good mantra at times.  It would be a hard call to say that I favor one over the other.