Last night after lots of excellent advice from the chief ranger we went out on another quest for the Green Python (Morelia viridis). During the day there had been a lot of rain over most of the national park area and especially around the ranger station. Which my sources had told me was an excellent time to look for pythons as the wet weather draws them out. We started off with a dry night and many frogs, thousands of Common greens (Litoria caerulea) on the roads along with just as many White lips (Litoria infrafrenata). With Ron at the helm we traversed the road through the rainforest crusing slowly and spotlighting the bushes along the way. This yielded only the occasional frog on a vine or a passing bat, but alas no green pythons. We took a short detour at Cook's Hut campground to do some foot work but this only resulted in a few very large cane toads and a Graceful Tree Frog (Litoria gracilenta).
After Cook's Hut we pushed onward to the Gordon Creek campgrounds, which I was told was as far as we would need to search for Green Pythons. Again more footwork was involved with the a surprising find occuring here. As I was searching the trees I stumbled across a very curious little fellow that not many people get to experience. I had found a very lively blind snake (Ramphotyphlops polygrammicus). I captured the little fellow swiftly and was rewarded with some very smelly secretions on my hands. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the individual due to a daring escape it made from a container that I was keeping it in until I could get a better look. It is now somewhere in our house or yard. This was the first time I had encountered a blind snake (or Typhlopidae for you herpers out there). Also while searching around I came across a whipsnake, not to sure whether it was greater or lesser as I was not too keen to wrestle with it.
At this point it had began to rain, much to the disappointment of everyone, mostly myself. I had resigned myself to a fate worse than death, that of not being able to have a one up on my herping friend. By now the rain had worsened and even Ron had decided that no self respecting snake would ever come out in this weather. It was at this time that we made a most wonderful discovery. Moving across the road was a Green Python.
My first photo was not the best to say the least as it was raining and very poor light. But it shows the size of the individual and how it was slowly making its way across the road. I then caught the python and it is an experience that will stay with me forever. To hold this magnificent animal brought me so much joy. As is evident in the photo below I was stunned and over the moon =)
Mum (Susanne) very kindly did all the photography for this event as it was beginning to rain quite heavily and I was pretty much incapable of doing it myself.
After the photoshoot and a bit of a cuddle we took it off the road and into tree.
As it was now raining heavily we returned back to Lockhart River with the discovery of two more snakes on the way home. One was a large Water Python (Liasis mackloti) which was stretched across the road.
There was also a large and very angry Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis) crossing the road near the ranger station but he didn't want to stick around for a photo.
So after a exciting and long night out we returned home happy.
Hope you enjoyed my post =)
Kahleana
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