Month: October 2024

A rather strikingly patterned Eastern Natal Green Snake (Philothamnus natalensis) from the first day of a week-long trip through Zululand with @afri_herp_birder and @the_local_herper, late last year. After a more-or-less fruitless afternoon of flipping over rotting logs and skoffling through fallen leaves in an empty campsite outside Mtunzini, Tristan spotted this snake, which was stalking a skink through the undergrowth. Unfortunately, the main target for this area – the infamous Jaco Dercksen – continued to elude us, but this was a good consolation prize.

A young Forest Cobra (Naja subfulva) from iSimangaliso Wetland Park, KwaZulu-Natal, observed with @afri_herp_birder and @the_local_herper in December, last year. While not quite the monstrously large specimen that all three of us had been daydreaming of, finding this snake just about saved the whole trip, after we’d been blanking on most of our targets for nearly a week. An exciting lifer for everyone involved.