THERE has been a spate of sightings of carpet pythons in southeast Queensland backyards recently, some making a meal of possums, others just hanging out.

A snake catcher said the pythons may have left their eggs or could simply be enjoying the rain.

Larissa Titze and her housemate Karina Hill, both 34, of Nundah were sitting in their courtyard about 11.30 last Saturday night when they saw a possum that regularly visited sitting on the fence.

“All of a sudden, the possum seemed to fall into the bushes,” Miss Titze said.

“We thought that was weird and that it was a bit clumsy, but it was dark so we couldn’t see it in the bushes so kept chatting.

“Then we heard a big thud, like something hit the ground.”

Miss Titze said Miss Hill looked over and saw the 1.6m snake about four steps away.

The women ran inside, before calling out to their neighbour who they had just chatted to earlier.

“Then we shone a light on it. It already had the possum and there was nothing like we could do; we couldn’t exactly shoo the snake away,” Miss Titze said.

“It was like a car crash, we couldn’t look away.

“We watched it from about 11.30pm to 1am. It tried to eat the possum tail first but couldn’t, so turned it around.

“I had never seen a snake in the wild, and now I’ve seen one eating a possum.”

Miss Titze said when the python was finished eating, it slowly unwound itself and slithered up a tree.

“It was crazy,” she said.

“It was the last thing you expect to happen on a Saturday night in Nundah in your courtyard.

“Although another friend said she had a smaller python in her yard the same night.”

storm, Claudia Harford Love, 22, arrived home when she spotted a snake half on a car tyre and half on the ground.

“We were just about to pull into the driveway, when we saw a snake come out of my neighbour’s tyre and lie half on the road,” she said.

“We stopped the car and got out and went and told our neighbour.

“Then we all came out with flashlights and tried to find out whether it was still in the car or not.”

Miss Harford Love said they last saw the 1.6m carpet python go back under the car, but no one could find it again.

She said O’Farrell Avenue backed onto a park but no one had seen the snake slither off into the grass.

Over in Oxley, a resident snapped a photo of a 2.5m carpet python hanging out on a street sign enjoying the rain.

Sally and Norman Hill of Snake Catchers Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan and Gold Coast posted the photo to their Facebook page after coming across it elsewhere.

“I found it on one of the buy-and-sell pages,” Mrs Hill said.

“My kids go to Oxley State School and there are a few other parents on there, as it’s not far from where the kids go to school.

“The python just stayed on the sign enjoying the rain. It’s something you don’t really see every day.

“It’s snake season, so snakes are out and basically for looking for food, like possums.”

Mrs Hill, 41, said it was possible many — but not all — of the pythons were hungry females who had just spent the past 60 days incubating eggs until they hatched.

She said carpet pythons were the most commonly spotted and were not venomous.

“From now until about March we could see a lot of baby snake.”

Noosa woman Fiona Sheen also recently photographed a carpet python hanging upside down outside her house, quietly eyeing off some mice.