Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Very Important Notice: All the photos in this entry were taken by Ruan Stander, not by me! I'm using them all with permission, to showcase his talents.

I was on an amazing adventure from the 13th to the 16th of December, 2019. I was with Ruan Stander, a real enthusiast of reptiles and amphibians, and his friend Vhutali Dangale. We were off to Venda! Venda is a region in the far north of South Africa, with a distinctive culture and language. It was ear-marked to become an independent country during the Apartheid years, but since the end of Apartheid has been 're-absorbed' into South Africa. It is largely rural and there are many wild and relatively pristine parts of it. We were headed to one such part, in search of a very special snake – a forest cobra.

The Forest Cobra, Naja melanoleuca (or Naja subfulva), as you might hypothesize from its name, lives in forests, or at least very well-wooded habitats. Now South Africa is mostly a very dry country, and proper forests occupy less than one percent of its surface. The forest cobra has been known to occur only in a very small part of South Africa, namely the far north-eastern corner of Kwazulu-Natal; there have been two records from Pafuri in the Kruger National Park from some years ago, and a single record from Venda. The Venda record is the one that piqued Ruan's interest. It is a good distance further inland from Pafuri to represent a large extension of the known range of the snake. The specimen collected was found dead and decapitated in a road; the record was made but the specimen subsequently got lost. At the time it was not even clear if the snake ever properly lived in the region it was found; it might have been a 'hitch-hiker' who travelled in on a car or truck coming from Kwazulu-Natal or Mozambique (where it also occurs) and dropped off in the road; it might have been killed by a human or a bird-of-prey.

Ruan had to do some sleuthing to find the place where the record was made, the Mphaphuli Nature Reserve. He found it on Google Maps. Finding the real-world equivalent was not so easy. Ruan, Vhutali and I set off early Friday afternoon and were in Venda soon, but there were no road signs indicating the reserve; we asked locals and finally got to a settlement perched on a hillside close to where the map showed the place to be. We found a young woman who seemed to know what was going on. Her Thsivenda name is Ompfarisaho, English name Rejoice, and she turned out to be the sister of the local chief. Here I must tell you that most Venda folks speak hardly a word of English or Afrikaans, but Vhutali is Venda and interpreted for us, which facilitated things enormously. We obtained permission to camp on the land, close to a big reservoir, and on the first day Ompfarisaho took us up on a trail into the hills above the settlement.

The hospitality of the people was amazing. We were welcomed by the community; our 'hanging out place' was a big mango tree with a platform built up around its trunk; we put our big water container there, we ate there and relaxed there; an elderly lady brought us some plastic chairs to sit on. She also brought us some termites – the plump flying ones! The rainy weather had brought out these insects in huge numbers. Vhutali and I passed, but Ruan ate some. He finds them tasty! The lady later brought him some roasted ones. On the last day, Ampharitsau gave us a bunch of mangos from the very tree we sat under. They use very long branches to knock them off the tree.

After setting up our tents and having dinner, we went for night-time exploring in the hills above the settlement, with torches and headlamps. That was fascinating in its own right. Ruan is expert at seeing the glint of a tiny eye at a great distance, and often enough, physically capturing its owner. Our nightly excursions yielded frogs, lizards, insects, arachnids, a few birds cuddled up next to each other for the night, and wonderful mammals, specifically Four-toed Elephant Shrews (or Sengis), a tree-climbing mouse, and Thick-tailed Bushbabies, which I hope to soon feature here.

On our second day, Ampharitsau took us to the Mphaphuli Nature Reserve proper. It was not far away, actually. It seemed popular with locals; just outside the reserve, women did their washing in the river that flowed from it; on the inside, no such washing was allowed, but many people came to collect water. The pristine nature of the reserve is vital for insuring that the water remains unpolluted, and I generally have high hopes that therefore they will respect the reserve's integrity.

The reserve is quite large and we explored but a small part of it. Ampharitsau took us in along a trail following the river. The habitat was very promising: tall riverine forest with enormous trees, a rich understory of herbs and shrubs, and thick leaf litter with lots of rocks and fallen stumps lying about – excellent refuges for snakes and other critters. I didn't actually think we had a hope in hell of finding forest cobras. Imagine trying to find a specific snake in a huge forest – a snake that, even if it is there at all (and it might very well not have been), is expert at hiding itself. Cobras are some of South Africa's most dangerous snakes, and humans tend to kill them on sight – survival of the fittest means that any snakes who still live would tend to be good at keeping out of sight. So I was basically just enjoying the nice environment, the scenery, all the plants and birds and the little easy-to-see critters like the butterflies and other insects. Sure, I'd keep my eyes open for cobras and other snakes, just in case.

Ampharitsau was rather dismayed to discover that we were crazy and more than half of the time off the trail lifting rocks and stumps and searching for snakes which she sensibly considered best avoiding.

Well, what do you know, on our very first day in there, as we were venturing a bit off the path to inspect some rotten stumps, Ruan suddenly shouted and lunged. It was a snake, a huge one – between five and six feet in length! A forest cobra indeed! Ruan didn't have his snake-stick with him (a long rod with a bent metal tip that can be used to hook a snake and/or push down its head so that it can be grasped safely) but he actually grabbed the thing in his hands! The cobra did not take kindly to this manoeuvre and turned to look back at him, spreading its hood. Ruan wisely let go, and the snake equally wisely set about escaping with consummate haste. The thing could move! Ruan shouted at us to watch where the snake went as he charged after it. I followed it by eye into a dense clump of grass but then lost sight of it; Ruan also did. The snake had escaped! It was on the one hand incredible that we actually found a cobra in the first place, but on the other, Ruan was very disappointed on having lost it. Properly recording it demanded that we have some physical proof … there was no time for a photo.

But we found the snake at least! We were the first people to knowingly encounter a living forest cobra in Venda! We knew now that the dead specimen found on the road wasn't a fluke; there must certainly be a population of them in this particular forest.

We saw many other things that day; the evening we returned to Base Camp, and after dinner again went for our nightly crittur hunt (without actually killing anything, to be sure).

The next day Ampharitsau wisely declined guiding us again, but a man called Victor wanted to guide us to a nice spot. Again we entered the forest, Ruan hoping almost against hope that we could again find the cobra. We tried re-locating its rotten-log 'home' but initially couldn't! We eventually did manage to find the place, but it wasn't there. Walking around the rest of the forest, however, we found a second one! It was much smaller, perhaps half the size of the first snake, but it was as fast, and managed to escape without Ruan even getting a grip on it. Again a disappointment … but again another snake! Two forest cobras in as many days! It really was a good sign … incredible good fortune for us, but again the disappointment of still having no concrete proof.

We actually did find something concrete … a snake skin that'd been shed. It was intact from head to tail, and Ruan inspected it, thinking it was likely a water snake.

The rest of the walk was lovely, with magnificent Waterberry, Matumi, and Forest Fever trees lining the river. Birds were calling and I had glimpses of a few, including a Black Sparrowhawk, and a sweet little Ashy Flycatcher, species I don't see often. Victor took us to a beautiful, deep and tranquil pool at the head of the river. The pool apparently never dries out, not even in the driest years, and there are tales of it being haunted/enchanted somehow. Recently a man drowned in it and his body was only found after four days of searching the pool!

Our final day dawned. Would we be able to repeat our successes of the previous days and again find a cobra? Ruan had high hopes, but honestly, we'd been so lucky it seemed to verge on arrogance to think that we would again have such fortune.

But before we got to the reserve, we checked out a little cultural celebration. The day, Monday the 16th, was actually a national holiday, the Day of Reconciliation. There was a group including both men and boys who blew on practised 'horns' made of various materials, including hollow feather dusters with the ends cut off. They were accompanied by drums, including some huge ones that surely must have a lot of history behind them. A few men and women played on the drums while the big group of men and boys played on their instruments and danced. It was a very moving experience, the video hardly does it justice! The group gave a few different performances in a few different places that day.

After that we had a few hours left to explore the reserve one last time. We went in and again checked out the stump where we found the first snake; again it was out on business. We ventured on to where we found the smaller one; no sign of it. Oh well. We walked on, just enjoying the surroundings. I actually saw some very intriguing plants, and learnt to identify a few new species. The understory was very diverse and because of the canopy not being very dense, there were even Crinum-lilies flowering in the dappled shade.

As the time approached when we would need to turn back, we walked past a huge and beautiful fallen stump, full of nooks and crannies and hollows. I told Ruan that I thought it would be an ideal little apartment complex for cobras. Ruan agreed; he'd noticed it on the previous days also, but saw no snakes. He walked past it, scanning the way ahead, and I relaxedly inspected it as I walked past myself …

AND. THERE. WAS. THE. SNAKE.

It was almost close enough to reach with my hand. 'Ruan', I sorta shouted-whispered, 'there it is!' It was lounging out of a hollow in the middle-region of the stump, with its head and about a foot of its body exposed. Ruan did a double-take as he saw it; I'm sure for a while he couldn't believe it. The snake was just lying there in total tranquillity. Its eye facing us had a glazed-over look. It was about to shed its skin! The outer surface of the eye also gets shed along with the rest of the skin; underneath will be a perfectly fine, transparent, new eye-covering. Likely because of the glazed eye, the snake was probably not able to see us very well. Ruan now was able to take the photos he wanted – and needed as proof! The snake was quite placid as he snapped it from this angle and that. Finally it seemed to notice us, flattened its neck slightly, without actually spreading its hood, and flicked its tongue fitfully.

Well, it was more than we could ask for. Ruan at last wanted to at least try catching it, but as he got close, it withdrew deep into its log-hollow and we were unable to pursue it any further. To be honest, I was relieved at that; from the time Ruan had grabbed that first cobra in his hands I was worried that he might get bitten!

So … it was pretty much the perfect ending to our Venda adventure. We got our evidence of Forest Cobras occurring in the reserve, we had a great cultural experience, and we all got home safe.

In an interesting postscript, Ruan actually looked closely at his photos of the snake skin we had found … and concluded that it, too, was actually from a forest cobra! We had left it in the forest … if we had taken it along, it would actually have been good concrete evidence to have. As it is, Ruan has submitted his photo to the herpetological archives, so we have now contributed very meaningful scientific knowledge about the distribution of this rare snake in South Africa.

Willem

06.01.20 Front Page

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