Egg Eating Snake

Moving to a new continent is a simulataneous joy and frustration for those with a naturalist bent. On the plus side there is a whole new fauna and flora to discover. On the downside until you become very familiar with it you often haven't got a clue what you find is. This happened to me on a recent short field trip to Golden Gate Highlands National Park. The trip was a total washout, heavy rains and bad weather made it unpleasant in the field and had caused a rockfall that obscured much of the site we wanted to investigate. However while scrabbling around the rockfall I found this beautifull little snake. I didn't know it at the time but I had found a rhombic egg-eater (Dasypeltis scabra), a member of a fascinating group of snakes I had always wanted to see. Sadly I thought it was a night adder so treated it cautiously I didn't give it a very close look. Night adders are quite venemous whereas egg eaters are virtually toothless and quite harmless (unless you happen to be a small bird egg). Only later when I was back home did I identify what it really was.

A little about Dasypeltis snakes for those who don't know. They are an african genus of colubrids that are adapted to feeding exclusively on bird eggs. They are capable of swallowing eggs up to three times the width of their head. They have highly reduced dentitions and use ventral projections from the vertebrae in the gullet region to pierce the shell. The liquid contents are swallowed and the collapsed shell is regurgitated. I would love to see this in action, but my little guy was just sheltering from the bad weather when I found him.

Lookin' out my back door

Well out my back window actually. We've been watching this industrious little guy for almost three years now. He is a masked weaver (Ploceus velatus), and in order to attract a mate he has to construct a nest of sufficient quality to encourage a female to lay her eggs in it. Sadly he's a bit of a loser. Although several females have checked him out he has never been able to seal the deal. After every rejection he would demolish the nest and start again. Now however it appears he is so riddled with frustration and self-doubt that he just builds and destroys nest after nest without even getting it looked at first. I kind of empathize with him, my early years (15 through to 26) weren't too dissimilar.

I can draw a little, or.. An Anthropocene Azhdarchid Analogue

As you could well imagine, I really haven't had time to write much blog material of late. So I'm showcasing one of my drawings. Its a Southern Ground Hornbill. Seriously if you like it the original is for sale (price negotiable). The proceeds will help me and my family get to the UK next year for SVP Bristol.

Burnworm

I will admit adjusting to life in South Africa has not always been easy. One small bright spot though is its wildlife. Not just the big mammalian fauna of the gameparks but the small stuff that is everywhere. Like this spectacular catepillar (a larva of the saturniid moth Bunaea alcinoe) I shot at a friend's house during the christmas holidays of 2006. Where I grew up (Adelaide) we had a diverse insect fauna but so much of it is small and drab, so much of the African fauna seems larger and brighter, and it is all new to me.