SNAKE!

One of the best safaris that I have had in a long LONG time. After months of struggling for a blip, I opened 11 subject files for 18 images.

The blue carpenter bee finally came out of its hole after months of waiting for the shot. In the end I screwed the shot up by forgetting to reset the under exposure that I needed for my previous subject, a white damsel fly.

While I was stood motionless waiting for the bee to return for a second go, a tree shrew came out to play. I picked up 4 images, but a bit far away for a good blip. It does show that standing motionless for fifteen minutes pays off. I also picked up a nice image of a tatty great mormon and a very large wasp in that fifteen minutes.

Walking on, I collected rare images of a common lime Papillion butterfly, a more common brown skipper and an orange skipper.

Inspired by Cath Gordon’s dragon shot of yesterday, it was my intention of doing dragons today. I did pick up a couple of dragon and damsel shots, and they came very close to selection.

About 20 paces ahead, I saw a bush move quite heavily. This could only be one thing – a snake. From the extensive movement, it had to be large and my guess was a 5ft rat snake – I was right.

Identification - Ptyas korros - rat snake.

This was a rare opportunity, as the snake could not possibly have seen me yet. Usually the snake sees you long before you see the snake and all you see is it disappearing into the undergrowth.

I approached with utmost stealth, but still my efforts were not good enough, as the snake slithered deep into the bush and out of sight. There was nowhere for the snake to go but down a 15ft drop to the stream, so I figured it was still there, so I sat down in front of the bush and waited for some movement.

Eventually, after an age of waiting, a leaf moved and I caught sight of the head, staring at me intensely. I picked off a few shots and moved on. It was obvious I was not going to get any more.

All in all, a good safari. A difficult choice, but it had to be my first spotting of a rat snake this year.

Dave