We've had a rather exciting time of it recently with some up close and personal encounters with snakes. Although they don't have deadly snakes in Madagascar, it's difficult to trust that or put it to the test!
Most evenings there's a call of, "snake", as one of us just avoids treading on one of these chaps who we regularly see around camp at night.
You quickly get used to carrying a torch as they're not very quick to move off!
On a recent night walk we saw this fellow, a tree boa, who stayed hanging out on this branch for the next day and night.
We go to bed pretty early here what with early starts, physically tiring days and limited electricity. Unusually I heard excited chattering at about 10pm a couple of nights later and, on investigating, found 2 big eyed guardians who where sharing their bungalow with the tree boa who looked a lot bigger extended along their wall. It was encouraged to leave but I don't think either of them had a good night's sleep!
Last Saturday my neighbour was cleaning his bungalow; trying to evict a persistent mouse who wanted to set up home. Having been woken up weeks before by a mouse biting his big toe he wasn't keen to share! Whilst cleaning he saw this 1m+ snake that seemed to be struggling to find his way out or perhaps he was hunting the mouse!
While I was working in the vegetable patch I saw this very brazen snake. I think it lives here as I've seen it a few times; I disturbed it inflagranté with a mate on one occasion! I wandered away for a couple of minutes and returned to find him constricting a skink which was then swallowed whole, fascinating, if a little macabre, to watch.
The final snake excitement was when I was on my own early one morning walking in the forest and happened upon this boa digesting right across the path. The approximate size of his meal looked suspiciously like a fat tailed lemur!
No dramatic stories to this snake, it's just rather gorgeous and we've only seen it once. I spotted him on one of our night walks.
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