Tuesday, November 17, 2009

After Waiting For a Long Time...

You do notice that I have been continuously posting only about insects and other invertebrates. No snakes and no lizards. Well that's because the reptiles are pretty uncommon here in my area during the May-June period. It was extremely rainy for most days too. However, during the second night hunt, I finally managed to spot a snake. We were doing our regular night hunt when I spotted this really long rat snake slithering down the bushes. It was about 2.5 metres long! My cousin, being an expert at snakes, grabbed it's tail and told me to slowly get some shots. But I couldn't since there was no light and so my camera could not sense or focus the subject. I took the risk and moved close to its head and grabbed few shots.
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I was really lucky that it didn't attack me. All thanks to my cousin who was was distracting the snake from me. Just as I moved my camera to take another shot, it opened its mouth...
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And then it tried to strike my cousin's hand a few times! Luckily my cousin dodged all of its attacks, missing those fangs by a mere inch. If I were a bit more accurate with my timing, I would have been able to capture a superb strike-shot. But it looked like there wasn't any more time. The snake was already getting very furious so we let it go. Rat Snakes are known to bite really badly, although non-venomous. My uncle once got bitten by a small one and said that it was worse than the bite from his German Shepherd. So that was it. Finally after all these days I spotted and photographed a snake. Though I could have done much better.

5 comments:

Bluebottle said...

Poor thing there's no more night hunting. I really enjoyed reading yer posts on night hunting. Your cousin must be very lucky that he didn't get bitten! I haven't any luck with snakes in the daytime...... How do you find them?

Shawn said...

Hi BlueBottle,

Yes, my cousin really is lucky. Besides, he's been bitten a few times before, once even by a venomous cobra. But luckily he was treated and alright now.

For snakes, this time I only spotted this rat snake at night, and a green whip snake in the day. But couldn't get any photos of the whip snake.

If you ask me how to find snakes, all I know is that you should walk and be quiet, and be observant by looking carefully and listening to strange sounds.

William said...

Wow! Shawn, really great snaps, you must have put a lot of effort in taking these photos! Well Done!

Thomas said...

nice shot

Shawn said...

Thanks Guys!

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