This brown snake was out hunting today, the first I have seen this year. He was right next to a bird-watching hide at Kelly's Swamp in Canberra. I only saw two or three snakes last year, while I used to see two or three per day before the drought. Although it was a wet rainy year last year, their numbers had crashed during the previous several years of dry conditions, when there were few mice or frogs. The mice and frog numbers are high this year so hopefully the snakes will have a better time too.
Brown snakes kill more people in Australia than any other snake, because they are common in suburbia and cleared woodland where people tend to walk. This one was well behaved though.
He was about three and a half feet long.
