The Fight of its life: Snake vs Chinese Pond Heron

A patient hunting Chinese Pond Heron caught my eye on the mudflat. 

Suddenly it picked up something from the mud. At first I thought it was a mudskipper.

When the heron had trouble pulling it out, I realized it was something more exciting than a mudskipper.

In fact, it was a snake!

While the heron may have been pleased with its catch, the snake, on the other hand, wasn’t prepared to give up its life without a fight.

It managed to get away from the heron a couple of times.

However, the heron wasn’t going to let its catch go easily either. Then, unexpectedly, the snake became very aggressive.

I thought the snake was going to attack the heron, but all of a sudden it did a runner!

Unfortunately for the tough snake, the heron seemed determined to get its meal.

The snake fought even harder to get away.

Finally, it looked as though the snake had lost its battle. 

As soon as the heron tried to swallow it, 

astonishingly (to both me and the heron), the snake fought back again and tried once more to flee! 

This time, however, the snake’s fate was sealed.

Even inside the heron’s mouth, the struggle didn’t stop. Sadly, it was not the snake’s day.   

The heron had its meal at last, 

and a well “deserved” rest. 

 The fight lasted for 6 minutes.

War in the garden: birds vs snake

A few weeks ago, I heard the Red-whiskered Bulbuls making a lot of stressful noise in the garden. They would often stand on the big pomelo tree and looked as though they were “shouting” at something underneath.

When I went to investigate, I found that they were actually “screaming” in the direction of a small tree. 

Initially I thought it had something to do with the old nest that a pair of Red-whiskered Bulbuls abandoned last year (the dark shadow in upper center).

When I got closer to the tree, I noticed a pair of bright eyes staring at me. Actually, a big green snake was resting in the tree!

In fact, the snake was sunbathing in the tree but the birds were not happy about the snake being  in their territory. It seemed that they were trying to scare the snake away from the garden.

In the following days, over a dozen Red-whiskered Bulbuls came to the garden regularly and kept “screaming” at the snake. Some brave ones even got really close to the snake (just above the black knot).

Others were either sitting on the big pomelo tree above 

or keeping their distance from the snake.

The loud stressful noise must have alarmed other birds nearby. Soon, several types of birds came to the garden to investigate, including Common Tailor-birds, 

Oriental Mygpie Robins.

Initially, the snake did not take any notice and continued his sunbathing everyday for about a week.

But the birds seemed so determined that their “shouting” frequency was increased to 3-4 times a day. After tolerating the noisy birds for over a week, the snake was finally fed up and left. It hasn’t returned since.

The Red-whiskered Bulbuls are now back to their happy go lucky nature and the stressful “shouting” noise has been replaced by happy singing sounds.

 I wish I could tell them how much I admire their courage and determination for winning the war against a potentially lethal enemy more than 10 times bigger than themselves.