Life couldn’t be better, could it? Imagine the scene:
You are relaxing by the Yarra River in Melbourne, enjoying a barbecue with loved ones. You spot a hawk circling nearby and you admire the powerful bird of prey.
Then something really unusual and scary happens. Yes, today is video day and the title of the video itself warns you exactly what’s going to happen. So no surprises.
Yet, you will still be surprised…
Now I suspect at this stage many of you are thinking that you knew Australia had its dangerous critters and that snakes are quite high up on that list. But a hawk throwing a snake at you when you’re trying to enjoy a barbecue?
Crikey Australia! Is this what we can expect?
Whatever next, flying sharks? Crocodiles charging like bulls? Deadly spiders hiding in shoes?
Okay, the spider thing does happen quite a bit, but so far no evidence of that shark or crocodile behaviour happening anywhere anytime soon. Snakes being hurled at people eating barbecues is very new though, and that’s what I’m looking at in further detail today.
What kind of snake was it?
Snake identification isn’t easy, but it is important. Some snakes are harmless, but others can be deadly, so what kind of snake are we looking at here?
Well, this one appears to be around a metre or so in length, olive brown, with a rather thick body. Could be a venomous eastern brown or maybe even a dangerous King brown, but it’s not.
Even though I’m not a snake expert, I know exactly what this snake is.
It’s a fake snake, or CGI as it’s called in the movie business.
The Hawks
The Hawks is the nickname of a footy team based in Melbourne called Hawthorn Football Club. They are an Australian rules football club who play in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Next weekend they play in a qualifying final against the Geelong Cats, and this was a video they created in conjunction with a Melbourne production team as a bit of a publicity stunt. I think it’s worked, the video has only been up a few days and at the time of writing has already cranked up around 1.5 million views.
If you look closely towards the end of that video, you’ll notice the Esky (English language translation = cool box) belonging to the people having the BBQ has a Geelong Cats sticker on it.
They are Geelong Cats supporters, and the video is saying ‘We are coming to get you‘.
Breathe easy everyone, yes we do have snakes in Australia, but they do not get thrown at you by birds from the sky. That would be ridiculous. How do I know for sure? Well, Fox Sports have confirmation.
Do check your shoes for spiders though.
Hi Bob, while hawks may not throw snakes at people having picnics Kookaburras do have a nasty habit of catching venomous snakes and taking their prey up onto power lines crossing the road. Recently my husband was driving home from work when he noticed a Kookaburra sitting on a power line holding what my husband thought was a stick. Just as he drove under the Kookaburra it decided to drop it’s ” stick ” onto the bonnet of my husbands ute. My husband then realised that the stick was actually a Tiger Snake around 5 feet long. As he had 4 cars following him on a single lane highway he had no option but to close his window very quickly and keep driving. Snakes have been known to wrap themselves around axles and the like under cars only coming out once the car stops so my husband very carefully exited his vehicle as he had no idea where the snake had gone after it landed on his bonnet. I knew from past experience with Kookaburra’s that they catch snakes as part of their normal diet and then drop them from a reasonable height in order to kill them before eating them. My husband phoned my from his car and told me what had happened. I advised him to be careful when exiting his vehicle as the snake may have wound itself around something under his ute and explained why the Kookaburra had dropped the snake, although I expect the Kookaburra hadn’t counted on the fact that the traffic under the power line may carry his meal away. The snake in question obviously slid off my husbands bonnet and ended up elsewhere as when my husband exited his vehicle he wasn’t followed by a snake in rather a nasty mood over it’s treatment. We live in Tasmania so have a limited number of snake species and all are venomous and dangerous to humans if they bite you.
I have heard of this before actually, kookaburras killing snakes by dropping them from a great height, seems like on this particular occasion your husband made off with the bird’s supper.
Whilst landing on the bonnet of your husband’s ute would have almost certainly cushioned the snakes fall a bit, I can’t imagine it did him much good either. Hopefully he slithered off and survived, but if he did, I suspect he felt quite crook.
Must have been a sight to see though. Glad to hear your husband didn’t panic.
I love Tasmania, by the way, I was there earlier this year, had a great time. Thanks for sharing your story, Bob
aww that’s actually a fake video tho 🙁 http://www.snopes.com/hawk-drops-snake-on-bbq/ !
Sorry but kinda glad it’s fake as it would be scary as…! 🙂
…..or…..maybe i should read the whole article before posting XD
Hehe, yes 🙂
hahaha that’s what happen when you have three kids distracting you and you trying to be clever 😉 😉