I keep a mixture of species, so there is always something going on around my place and I could never find this boring. I love to sit and watch my snakes even as they rest, to familiarise myself with their faces and their shapes, marvel at how they manage to squeeze into the tightest spots and still remain comfortable, and then to see, as I watch my sleeping snake, an eye move! Not sleeping at all, but watching me right back!
To cruise around the cages as I do my checks and notice who is alert to my activity and who isn't. To outstare the Brown Tree Snakes, spring them as they glide along a branch and then freeze in place when I come near, so I freeze also and we play... who will move first. (I cheat, I count those eye movements as a win to me!)
I adore to watch them drinking, to watch the muscles in their heads moving, some flicker their tongues as they drink, others bury their faces right up to their eyes and just let themselves go with the experience. I love to hold a water bowl under a nose as a snake rests and to see it flick, flick, realise the water is there and lower their head to drink as I enjoy the sight of my snakes trusting enough to do that while I stand there holding their water.
At nighttime, as the pythons cruise their branches, looking out of the enclosures to watch me and subconciously convincing me (in a totally anthropomorphic way of course) that they are asking to come out and explore, politely, with a please, thank you.
And when time comes that the bellies start to rumble and the cruising stops and the stillness of the hunt starts, to see them alert, but appearing not to be, heads jerking to each and every movement that happens around them. Tiptoe past, lest they strike the glass and hurt themselves.
To watch the feed, the clumsy ones attacking their harmless dinner backwards, taking forever to figure it out and reshuffle the hold to find that elusive head to start. The real hunters, hitting, squeezing the already lifeless body in an imagined kill. To tug lightly on the tail of dinner as the snake starts to back off a little, prompting a fresh squeeze. 'It's alive!! Kill it again!! Kill Kill!!'
To consistantly be amazed at the ability to stretch, the sides of the jaws and head moving stealthily, side to side, like creeping footsteps along the furry bodies disappearing inside, marvel at the muscles, stretching and pulling dinner deeper into their bellies. The shape of a rat gone, to be replaced by a form, infinitely longer and thinner than the rat was born to be in a rat perfect world. Then the push, as the head and neck turn, first this side, then that, pushing dinner deeper, the thin line of skin hanging loosely under the neck and the back muscles bunching with the effort.
Then dinner in the belly, so big and so fat refuge in a tight hidey hole is not possible. Watching them lying stretched across a branch, bellies full, the knowledge that those teeth are simply waiting for me to become complacent and reach in to adjust a waterbowl, thinking in my own head, (who has the pea sized brain now) that, no way, they are full and sleeping now, it's all safe... and reaching in with rat stinky fingers...
The reach for the towel to stem the blood. Nostrils filled with the lingering smell of rat, now lumps in bellies, but only recently defrosting in warm water. Cleaning the defrost bowls, curling my nose at the smell of the rat water. Knowing this is the first of a long line of cleans to be done over the next couple of weeks, as each happy satiated snake digests and yet, not regretting the work to come.
For in between the work, as I wait for my new wounds to heal and close and be forgotten, (maybe a scar or two and certainly another tale to tell for the enjoyment of others), comes the watching and appreciation of the animal species I have chosen to keep.
Never boring.