June 24, 2011 7:01:55 PM EEST
When we bought our villa in Sfakera 10 years ago I soon realised that my olive groves were rife with snakes - a bit worrying, especially when the locals told me that most of them are lethal - not true !!
Anyway, one afternoon just before we left last time, the swallows and house martins went crazy - we all looked out from under the veranda and there was a 2 meter snake suspended from the gutter with it's mouth open outside the entrance to one of the house martin's nests - poor bird then flew out and was swallowed whole, wings and all.
Herewith a pic of the snake. nearly half of it under the tiles !! I am convinced there are two, one smaller than the other (that's the male) came out later, and that they have made a nest in the roof space above the sitting room - hence no more pitter pattering as they have eaten the rats.
We have identified it as a 'four line tree snake' (Elaphe Quatuorlineata) sometimes called a rat snake or Denrogalia -- see http://hourglasssand.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/dendrogalia/ and hit the Translate button in the Google tool bar.
It is non venomous and usually shy. It will only bite if cornered or attacked and will shoot off if shouted at.
Several other websites complain that the Greeks kill them on sight when there's no need - there are several photos of people picking them up and cuddling them. My only concern is that if they have young they'll get in the house, also that if they stay and become used to humans being around the adults will also come in - so we are hoping our man Stathis can get rid of them, preferably without killing them.
In fact Corfu has more snakes per acre than anywhere else in Europe. But you should not be too worried, most of them are harmless and unless you go trekking through the olive groves you'll seldom see them. There are, however, two venomous snakes - the horned nosed viper or Ochia (which after 30 years of visiting and living there I have never seen) and small black krait (I have seen two) - both will scuttle away as soon as they hear you coming. When I go into my olive groves I always hit the ground with a stick.
The problem with Corfu, being an island, is that many of the snakes are unique even if most of them are viper variants. The only person I have met who really knew about all the snakes on Corfu was the then manager of the Corfu Golf Hotel (can't remember his name). If anyone reading this is an expert on Corfu's snakes do please share your knowledge, maybe we could compile a definitive Gerald Durrell style listing of what's what, which are venomous and how to treat them ie: not kill, kill, kill as most Greeks will tell you !?
Tony Bovill
