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David Fowler

Frothblower

Lubrication In Moderation
Met up with David Fowler today for a quick couple of pints before he went off to watch the Blues ( won 1-0 )

Oh yes, that's a snake on his arm:)
 
Hi Chris, nice to meet up for that ONE pint (the wife reads this board!). Yes it was great to have the snake on me. As I told the guy, I'm 60 something (well 63) and I've never touched a snake let alone had one crawl up my arm. I can honestly say it was a great experience. Its owner had just come from the vet where he'd gone to find out if it's a boy or a girl. It's a boy. I asked him how they find out but as this is a family forum I won't go into detail.:rolleyes:
 
sort of like this




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I know this is a bit off topic (as are anaconda) but did any one see the T.V. programme on S. American cat fish they found a dead one with the legs and feet of a man sticking out of it,s mouth. Dek
 
Hello there David,
Presumably you were fully aware that your acquaintance in the pub was harmless. They’re quite common in this part of the world. It’s an Elaphe quatuorlineata, or, in English, a Four-lined Snake. They can grow to a length of 240 cm, but rarely exceed 160 cm. They feed on small mammals such as voles, mice, shrews, rabbits, weasels, squirrels, and others up to the size of a rat that they suffocate by coiling their bodies around their prey and squeezing, young birds taken from nests (up to the size of a pigeon), eggs (which are swallowed whole and then broken by their trunk muscles) and some lizards, which are the favourite food of young Four-lined Snakes.
Below is a photograph taken by my Mum one September a few years ago. We had been to a restaurant on the side of a mountain and were on the 3 km path back to the car when I spotted this fine example of a Hierophis viridiflavus, a Green Whip Snake. Knowing it wasn’t an adder, I caught it and when I proudly showed it to Mum, she said, “Ugh, it’s horrible, let it go!” Being an obedient son, I did as she had asked.
After a couple of hundred metres, my mother said, “Oh, what a pity, I’ve got my camera with me. I could have photographed it.”
I went back to the spot where I had released the snake and after a 5-minute search, found it and caught it a second time.
In order to get a decent shot of my booty, I held it in my right hand and, holding out my left index finger, knew it would slither over my left hand using my outstretched finger for support. This I’ve done innumerable times with grass snakes. You can imagine my surprise when the whip snake savagely bit me 5 or 6 times in a fraction of a second on my left knuckle. The beads of blood can be seen in the photo. This behaviour readily enabled me to positively identify the snake as most reference books say things to the effect that “it is agile, fast and when it is caught it becomes very aggressive and bites ferociously even if it is not poisonous”.
What about some photos of Southwold?
Best wishes, David


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