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Be warned
This post contains images and a video of a snake which some (overly timid!) readers may wish to avoid
As I drink my morning coffee and J washes up, the diamond python begins his serpentine journey back to the guttering, and hence to his daytime home in my roof. This time, I’m involved in nothing more important than a coffee, so I whizz out with the camera to record his passage. It’s fine while he’s on the balustrade, and I get close enough to touch him (which I don’t do) as his tongue flickers in and out navigating his way back to the lattice. The sun shines on his gleaming black and gold pattern. At one point he senses my presence and stops, oscillating his head to figure out what’s invaded his journey. As he weaves his way back up the lattice the jealous sun positions itself behind the competition, ensuring that I can only photograph sunflare.
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I’ve just caught up with your blog and this one amazes me. I couldn’t live in a place that had a snake anywhere near it, and the thought that it might come indoors one day while I was maybe having a snooze in my chair, is enough to frighten the daylights out of me. I wish you well, and you have my admiration on all counts!
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I have to say I can barely stand to look at pictures of snakes, but yours are lovely, I think. 🙂 I had to squint when I was looking at them. 🙂
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Wow, that is so cool! Amazing to watch the snake ‘climb’ the lattice like that.
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Truly stunning. You are extremely fortunate having such a wonderful creature on your property.
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I am indeed, but not many people think so as enthusiastically as you!
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A while back, I embarked on a mini- quest to photo catalogue as much of the fauna in my garden as poss. and through this have pretty much lost any qualms towards insects etc, though still have a healthy respect for many!
Like us, they are mostly just trying to get through the day.
I have observed one small snake, but nothing like this beauty, a species one is unlikely to find in suburban Johannesburg!
Thanks for sharing. Super post.
🙂
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I like be the idea of documenting garden life. Is it a very big yard? I was a bit surprised the other day when I listed birds in my vicinity. I’ve also had bandicoots, the occasional wallaby and a bower bird’s bower. I live in quite a small village surrounded by national park and the sea, so not quite suburban. What have you found?
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We live on 2.2 k square metres in the suburb of Observatory in Johannesburg, about 6 kms from the City Proper.
Crumbs; to list everything here would take all morning I suspect.
But I have on record over fifty different bird species, including Heron, Eagle Owl, Hammerkop ( no pic) African Darter( no pic).
Most unusual mammal visitor was a Civet about a year ago, but with dogs and cats we get few visits from anything other than the odd mouse.
Most everything else are photos of arachnids and insects for which the list is quite large and growing all the time.
And it is great fun, too!
My brother, Gerry, lives in Australia, just outside Sydney. He is a pro photographer.
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I meant to come back to your python, but forgot 😦 so I am pleased you linked to it in the garden challenge. Now this really is my idea of wild life in the garden! And what a beauty, that lovely pattern, the sinuous movement. I wonder if it thought the clothes peg was some kind of food? Beautiful how it weaves in and out of the trellis. I am saddened i didn’t see it when I visited, but then again I might have been a tad nervous if I had known what you get in your lovely bush garden 😀
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I’ve also had a very fat goanna visiting. I’m not as keen on it, especially after it entered into an altercation with the dog up the hill and tore its ear off.
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Poor dog, perhaps it should have had more sense than to go near it. I rather like goannas.
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Wow, although I have never really had a fear of snakes, such a visit would have me terrified. There is something about being close to such a big snake that triggers my sense of danger. Knowing that it is harmless, though, makes it look less terrifying. But I still don’t know how I would react in real life 😀
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I’ve become used to pythons. There was one at a house I visit that used to coil up on the fuel stove, on a custom-built timber frame and occasionally peer into the saucepan to see what was cooking,
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I’m pleased you took the video too Meg, he moves so beautifully. 15 years ago we had a python visited us quite regularly. He would drink in the fishpond and catch the occasional lorikeet in the Grevillia tree. Unfortunately for him he also visited neighbours who didn’t appreciate his harmless beauty and they killed him.
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“Harmless beauty” is exactly the right phrase. And such a pity that your neighbours decided on murder rather than delight.
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It saddened us as it came over to our place to die.
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He is beautiful, but I am still glad that he does not live in my backyard.
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Will you still visit me????
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I have to admit, the colour and pattern is beautiful. If only he wouldn’t slither 🙂 🙂
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But the slithering is beautiful too!
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I hear you! I just don’t need to see it 🙂 🙂
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Amazing! I’m not sure I’d like to live with him, but he is a very handsome creature and I loved the pictures and video.
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I don’t live with him – just alongside him. I always feel blessed by a visit. The first deck one was just before I began a bout of private consultancy.
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What a beautiful creature, I love how snakes move – as long as its in your garden and not mine!
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NIMBY eh? You’d get used to its harmlessness and relish its various beauties. I’m a bit surprised that I take so much pleasure in a snake. I wouldn’t have predicted it. But then, I can now relocate spiders after a lifetime of arachnophobia.
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