Reptiles | GVI Kenya

Rodents and Reptiles

Category: Reptiles, Rodents | Date: Mar 09 2009 | By: gvikenya

Today’s blog has been written by Lorrayne Gaymer, an expedition member with GVI in Kenya. She is 27, from England, and has written about today’s highlights!

Today our team was in Shimoni east forest, attempting to finish the canopy surveys on transect 3. Firstly we checked the small mammal traps and found not to our surprise, Mrs Scarface (resident giant pouched rat), again! Seeing as we already have her measurements, we simply took some photos and let her go on her way.

Mrs. Scarface

We then managed to carry out over 30 minutes of primate behaviour on a troop of colobus, and finished all of the canopy cover surveys on transect 3 - a good feeling! After a nice lunch break looking out over the eastern peninsular, it was day over. The most exciting part of the day however, came on our way home when we were trudging back down the North-South spine, and our forest officer got the fright of his life as a very large forest cobra (over 1.5 metres) shot out of the bush right by his foot! It headed into the shrubs to our left, before crossing the path about 4 metres in front of us, allowing for an excellent view. It was SO long, really fat and lightning fast. Unfortunately we didn’t get enough time to wip our cameras out, so no photos. But to be honest, none of us really wanted to get that close for any length of time anyway! Still, an awesome and extremely exciting sighting!