An Australian raven came face-to-face with an eastern brown snake in Stockton's dunes, creating quite a spectacle.
The raven didn't back off. It had a noisy squawk at the slithering reptile.
Ian Gordon, who took photos and video of the moment, said the bird appeared to be "sounding the alarm" until the snake went back down its hole.
Vinny Sovechles, manager of Lexie's on the Beach at Stockton, saw the snake.
"It popped its head out of the rocks, but they're always there. They're always around. As long as you don't go stepping on them, you should be right," Vinny said.
Funnily enough, a 12-year-old boy named Jake was bitten by a brown snake when he stood on it at Stockton a few years back.
Well, it's not really funny per se, but you get what we're saying.
"It must've nipped Jake but we didn't think it had," the boy's grandmother said at the time.
Vinny said it is snake season, so "you will see the odd brown snake".
"They'll get into the rocks. There's been the odd case where one's been down on the sand, but someone is always pointing it out."
He said the ravens tend to "go a little berserk" and swoop above the snakes when they see them.
Vinny said customers don't need to be worried about snakes coming into the cafe.
And no, sadly, the cafe doesn't stock sugary snakes. Actually, that's probably a good thing.
Just quietly, though, we hear there are a few snakes among government officials dealing with Stockton's sand troubles.
Name the Quolls
Aussie Ark at Barrington Tops has been busy with their newest bundles of joy - twin five-month old eastern quolls.
The tiny joeys have cheeky personalities and love keeping surrogate mum Kelly Davis on her toes.
They are yet to be named, so Aussie Ark keepers are calling on the public to help give them their new monikers.
Every person who adopts an eastern quoll from Aussie Ark by October 21 will be in the running to name and meet the joeys.
They were born at Aussie Ark as part of an insurance population for the endangered eastern quoll.
The program was established in 2017 and has since seen the birth of more than 250 eastern quolls.
Hand-raising eastern quolls is no easy task. They require round-the-clock care, warm snuggles and bottle feeds four to five times a day, including a feed at 4am.
The duo will be hand-raised by Kelly, Aussie Ark's curator, for the next eight months until they are independent enough to rejoin their family at the wildlife sanctuary.
For now, they've taken on the role as ambassador for their species.
"Eastern quolls are one of the most iconic native species Australia has. They're feisty, rambunctious and play a critical role in Australian ecosystems," Kelly said.
"Eastern quolls were wiped from the mainland of Australia over 60 years ago. Aussie Ark is working hard to bring them back to the Barrington Tops by creating safe wild spaces for them to thrive."
The Trouser Crease
Boolaroo's Col Maybury says it's amazing how the world can react to small things.
"I am thinking of vertical creases at the front of men's trousers. In the late 1880s, the then Prince of Wales went on a tour of Canada," Col said.
"At his first public presentation, his dresser found to his horror that the prince's trousers had a crease all down the front caused by packing.
"It was too late to iron them, so the prince wore them. The Canadians thought the creases were a new fashion from Britain and then the world followed suit."
When Col was in the army in the 1950s, he said "we used to pour liquid starch down the inside of the crease, then heavily press outside to get sharp creases".
"You could almost cut yourself," he said.
Now the crease has gone, ties are on the nose and suits are a bit out of favour.
"How and why did most of the world's men react this way some 120 years after," Col asks.
Joke of the Day
What do you get when you combine two parts of this column? Yep, a trouser snake.
