A GUMDALE woman has captured the moment a possum is devoured by a carpet python in her yard.
Lyn Chambers rushed to take the photo after seeing that the snake had killed the ringtail possum up a tree.
She said birds had alerted her to the snake's presence, as they caused a commotion every time a slithering intruder made its way into her yard.
"By the time I had gone inside, got my phone and run back outside the snake had started (eating the possum)," she said.
"I thought 'I will come back in a few minutes and get a another shot of how he's gone'.
"When I did, it was just a lump in its belly so he devoured it pretty quickly.
"It was not a small possum by any means. It was an average size ringtail possum.
"It's part of the great circle of life for them. That's what they eat and that's what they're meant to do. Hopefully they get a few rodents while they're at it."
Ms Chambers said she would often see snakes on her property, many of which were far bigger than the one and a half metres that she estimated the possum-killing python to be.
"I had a snake on the garage door once," she said. "My son pulled it down and snake came down with it."
"...We get a few of them because we're on acreage.
"He was fairly good size to be able to eat that possum. I thought I would go back a couple of minutes later and there would still be the back-end of the tail there, but no.
"I should have taken video of it."
Ms Chambers said she knew when a snake was in her yard as the birds would start squawking.
"They go mad," she said. "They will all gather around and go nuts about it."
"It was a magpie at first (in this case), and I actually thought 'oh, there's something wrong with the magpie'.
"Then the noisy miners came along and joined in and I knew there had to be a snake around.
"...Sometimes they're really easy (to spot) but he does actually blend in quite well until you look."
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