My first snake of the season: an endangered Broad-headed one!

I really like snakes. Don't see nearly enough of them, despite being out in the bush so often. So far this snake season (the warmer half of the year) they've just about eluded me.

But last week, on a rocky outcrop above Victoria Brook just outside Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains, there it was: the first of the season. And it wasn't a common old brown snake, a red-bellied blacksnake, or a diamond python. It was the rare and endangered broad-headed snake (Hoplocephalus bungaroides). My second ever such sighting, and both out in the western Blue Mountains area.

They used to be common throughout the Sydney Basin, though they were always endemic to the region. Now they are only found in some of these remoter areas. Click here for: Wikipedia article

It seemed oblivious to us for a while, but eventually it woke up when we started pointing our cameras at it. It reared up, looked threatening for a moment, and then slithered into a hole under a rock.

It is indeed rather venomous, I gather. I always forget to be frightened though.


(Photo credit below: Angela McArthur)