First garden finds of the season

[John Rees]

With the weather warming up nicely, it is great to finally be able to go wandering around the garden and neighbourhood and see our smaller neighbours after their winter slumber.

Not too many finds but not surprisingly we have finally found our 7th snake species in our garden - Spotted Bush Snake (Philothamnus semivariegatus) and a really pretty one at that.

Scale perfect!



Also found these little ones the other night:

Red-lipped Herald (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia)


Brown House Snake (Lamprophis capensis)


Yet to find a Night Adder, which still surprises me living so close to stream with loads of frogs and toads.
Look forward to finding something unusual one of these days.

[leogecko]

Nice size spotted

[Fooble]

Nice finds John, glad to see you are still finding loads of stuff there.

[Smeegle]

Nothing like finding snakes in your own back yard!

[Wolf777]

Great finds and stunning animals all round. It's nice to see there are still places where you can find herps in your back yard.

[Durban Keeper]

very cool little BHS!

[John Rees]

Thanks. The kids and I just love this place. We plan on putting out fliers in this neighbourhood - at least for properties bordering this stream which runs through the middle of Maritzburg. The idea will be to try and get folks here to accept that most of the snakes they may come across here are harmless and to give us a call if needed.

Trouble is that unless you take a walk around your garden at night with a torch looking for them, you may very well never realise that they live right under your nose.

[Slashback]

Hi John,
Totally agree with you there. It sounds like I live not too far from you (Hesketh Drive) in a complex, and we have a bunch of Blue-Headeds and their families and have even had a monitor on our verandah!
I grew up in Murray road in Cleland, and as kids we used to see plenty Spotted's and BHS's in our garden, especially after a good storm in the evening when the flying ants came out in their thousands! Flying ants =frogs=snakes!
Joys of a innocent youth!