Bird vs. snake
I was on the phone with Cingular trying to fix our perpetually screwed up cellphone bill a bit ago and stopped talking in the middle of the conversation. I stood up to open my blinds to get a bit of light and watched one of the starlings that nest in our eves come screaming to the ground and starting flapping all over. I watched the bird flipping out for a few seconds and realized it had a snake in its mouth. It was bashing it on a tree root trying to kill it. It looked to be about a 10″ garter snake.
I was brought back to reality by the operator, ‘Sir? are you still there?’. ‘Yeah, I’m still here. I’m just watching a bird beat the hell out of a snake outside my window.’ The girl on the other end about freaked out. You could tell by her voice and accent that she was very ‘urban’. She’d probably never seen a snake in her life. That I could be so blasé about it stunned her. She said ‘well, I guess you _are_ in Texas.’ I told her yes. She then asked if I see a lot of snakes outside my window. I told her ‘No, but it’s not a big deal either.’
I wonder what she’d do if she ever saw a real snake. Oh, and the starling won the battle and promptly dissected the snake and fed it to her babies in the nest.