Spring is in the air

Yes, spring is in the air and we have had a few days when the temperature has gone beyond the 30 degrees mark. With spring also comes the creepy-crawlers and we have already had one student being bitten by a brown button spider; they are widow spiders and related to the well known black widow spider, but only 25% as venomous (the student is fine – no real harm done). We have also had a few sightings of sack spiders (creamy white, with black fangs and really dangerous) and a visit by a black mamba.

In the kitchen garden a few of us witnessed an olive grass snake stalk a striped skink, for about an hour. The olive grass snake is venomous but not dangerous to humans though. They are, however, dangerous to other reptiles and they have even been known to eat small specimens of black mamba.

The lifting of the head is pretty characteristic for this snake and it did so quite often as it got closer and closer to the skink.
Not sure what the skink is doing in this picture but as it was basking in the sun it had placed its hind legs on top of its tail.
The snake closing in after stalking the skink for more than an hour, covering about 3 meters in total.
The olive grass snake is one of the fastest snakes there is and when it struck it did so with amazing speed; skinks are pretty fast too and this one was lucky to (barely) get away, after a bit of a struggle in the grass.

/A & J