snakes

It is St. Patrick’s Day after all, so what about a song from The New Christy Minstrels?

Green, green, it’s green they say

On the far side of the hill

Green, green, I’m goin’ away

To where the grass is greener still …

We will stick with green, even though autumn is waiting in the wings, and begin with the counting out rhyme

A little green snake

Ate too much cake,

And now he’s got

A belly-ache!

This green snake, found on the lawn at Royal Natal National Park, didn’t get a belly-ache but had its head neatly chopped off – probably by one of the gardeners.

Several streets of the town I live in are lined with oak trees. Here are new leaves shining in the sunlight.

While prickly pears are not indigenous to this country, they have spread everywhere.

Known abroad as the jade plant for some reason, the Crassula ovata is indigenous here and we have several of them growing in our garden. This one is almost ready to show off its lovely flowers.

Spekboom is also indigenous to the Eastern Cape and grows very easily in my garden.

Lastly, these pods of the Weeping Boerbean (Schotia brachypetala) caught my eye.

“Stop!” I called upon sighting a snake crossing the dirt road ahead of us. Out I hopped, camera in hand to see what it was. The shape of this sinuous creature indicated that it was definitely a cobra. The first Cape Cobra I ever saw was a rich yellow colour, which is why I did not recognise this one at first. To business: photograph it to identify later if necessary and then admire it a little before resuming our journey. Cape Cobras can actually vary in colour from the yellow I have fixed in my mind to copper, various shades of brown, and even black. They can also be speckled with shades of brown and orange. Actually … as Luke has so kindly pointed out below, this is not a Cape Cobra but a Rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus). He points out the scales on this snake are keeled (have a ridge down each scale) whereas cobras have smooth scales.

I made sure to stand well behind the snake as I watched it cross the road. The tighter curves seemed to indicate that it was not particularly pleased with my presence. It also lifted its head slightly and began to spread its neck into a broader ‘hood’, which are typical warning signs.