But something exciting has happened, and it's a Friday, so you get two posts today! How lucky!
Last night we were invited to Tiko for pre-dinner drinks to say goodbye to Claire and Dave who have been working there for 3 months. Geoff and I were asked to collect Will and meet Nat at the front of the hospital so we could walk over together. Will was in the middle of the washing up and said he'd meet us at the front door.
We went round the front and played with Tiger whilst we waited. Suddenly Geoff said 'Snake!' There in the tree by the gate was a black snake wrapped round a branch at just above head height. It was making its way down. We stood still about 5m away on the porch of the house and started shouting for Will. "SNAKE!' "WILL" 'CAMERA!' 'WILL!!!!!'. In hindsight, it probably wasn't sensible to yell snake, given that the locals tend to interpret that as a command to find a stick and kill it.
When he came to the door he was bemused. 'What are you two making so much noise about?' 'SNAKE!' [this isn't fear, it's that we know he loves them and wouldn't want to miss it!] 'Oh, I should get my camera!' Yes, that's what we were yelling.
Now, Will has a brilliant snake identifying App. You just have to know how many ventrals the snake has, which requires you to have the snake upside down and still long enough to count them. We can't think of any more useful App in the world. Anyway, invariably we ask Will for the identity of the snake.
He walked forward towards the tree. By this time the snake has clearly had enough of the yelling and the dog (which didn't notice him but ran under the tree 3 times) and is making its way back up. 'Bush snake?' suggests Will. 'Are you sure?' I say. Everyone tells us all snakes are bush snakes and the markings on this one don't look right to me.
'Um, no, actually, I think it's a black mamba.....' Geoff attempts to enter the house but the door is locked. I decide to stay still. Will withdraws. The snake doesn't seem to have noticed and is still making his way up into the higher branches of the tree. It is between 1.5m and 2m long. It's impressive to watch it moving between the branches, it has amazing poise. Then we remember that they can move along the ground with 2/3rds of their body off the ground.....
In case you've forgotten what I said about the mamba, they are one of the world's deadliest snakes. They are territorial and incredibly aggressive when cornered. They can move faster than a human [Correction: they can move at 10-12mph, which my brother claims is NOT faster than an able bodied human...] and one strike is more often than not deadly. The nearest anti-venom is in Johannesburg - we've discussed many times whether we think it's possible to keep someone alive using CPR long enough to get them there. We don't think we could. Sometimes they don't envenom, if they are feeling nice!
I remembered that a few weeks ago I was heading to see Will in the afternoon and there were two men at the bottom of this tree with a stick trying to kill a snake. I told them off and that the man that lived here liked snakes. He does and he wouldn't have wanted it dead, even if it was a mamba, but I have more sympathy for the men now.
We lost sight of it in the second tree, very high up in the branches.
Here's a shot that Will took. It's an ID shot, not a creative shot. And yes, there's no head in it [the mamba has a distinctive coffin shaped head - it wasn't as distinctive as I'd hoped!]. We won't mention it to Will again because when I made this comment yesterday he called me 'the pain that a Zebra feels when it's bitten on the bottom by a Tsetse fly' in Afrikaans.
To identify snakes you need the shape of the head and the scales. The mamba has very distinctive large scales - as seen here. If you want to give us an alternative identification (and in some respects we'd welcome that) please feel free :)
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| Mamba making its way down a branch |
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