The Savanna Vine Snake

Savanna Vine Snake

The Savanna Vine snake is often referred to as a Twig Snake or Bird snake. The 'vine' or 'twig' name is derived directly from its appearance and markings and the 'bird' part is that large adults are known to raid birds nests and eat young fledglings which is about the only time that the average person may see one. This is a common snake in Zimbabwe and although its venom can be fatal, I was keen to get a much closer look at one. ie I really wanted to notch up my very own Vine Snake !! Well, if I consider that my snake catching hobby started at aged 12, it took me eight and a half years, 25 other species of snake, over 800 individual snakes before this became my only ambition. What really pained me is that I knew where to look for them and each and every fellow snake catcher that I knew had caught several. Some could even show me specimens that they were keeping themselves. Sooo frustrating. I eventually had a chat with one of my closest snake catching allies who had just been bitten by his 'pet' Savanna Vine Snake whilst trying to feed a lizard to it. I was keen to know more about the species and its bite.
He was a very big, strong and healthy man, but when I saw him some three weeks after the bite he did not look well at all. He said that the bite was not a full and aggressive 'me or you' type but more of an over exuberant feed time bite, however and in typical 'haemotoxic' manner the result was that my friend became extremely and physically ill, urinating blood and rupturing blood vessels just under the skin. He indeed was lucky to survive and had to treat symptoms and hope - as their is no anti venom for this snake. The thought of catching a snake that was potentially lethal with no serum excited me even more and I went home extra enthusiastic - if this was at all possible. He had however imparted a key piece of information that I had read somewhere else but had long since forgotten. During the mating season, vine snakes could be found in trees and shrubs overhanging rivers and streams.
I was inspired and that weekend I grabbed my snake catching equipment, looked at my watch and said to myself - Its vine snake mating season , lets go out and get a couple !! ( I had no idea whether it was or wasn't but it sounded good). After borrowing the large, American style, 5 seater canoe from my parents, went around to another long suffering, non snake catcher, friends house and urged him to spend the day canoeing. He looked at the snake bags quizzically and I had to tell him about my ulterior motive. He smirked, gave me the 'fat lot of hope of that ever happening' look and agreed.
We arrived at the local Dam around mid morning and without giving the ominously darkening clouds a second thought set of with great enthusiasm. We decided to go up the river on the right hand bank and come back on the other side. Prudent as we could make a hasty retreat if we encountered the one bull hippo known to frequent this river. Well, 3 hours later we had caught two water leguaans or monitors, seen one brown water snake and nothing. To make matters worse we were subjected to five minutes of torrential downpour on a section of river that was so thick with reeds that we could not get the canoe to the bank or even undercover. My friend had had enough and so we set off home. We did not hug the bank the way we had before and just decided to head for home - a change of clothes and a couple of games of pool at the local club being in order. Well, we rounded the last corner and were pulling away from the final stretch of bank when I noticed not one but two Vine snakes in the topmost fronds of an overhanging thorn bush. It took a lot of persuasion to turn the boat around but we did and banked it just short of the tree. The Vine snakes keen eye site had already picked up what was happening and to my amazement they did something unexpected and out of character. They headed down the thorn bush towards me.My friend was hastily pushing away from the bank, decidedly against sharing the canoe, so I jumped out but being acutely aware of the venom I also stepped aside to watch the pair disappear into the reeds. NO NO NO this was not happening and I was not going to let it happen !! So I plunged into the reeds after them and having a brief glimpse of snake heading away, I instinctively grabbed out and neatly gripped a portion of tail. Hastily retreating I flipped the snake out of the reeds and was then able to catch it on open ground. However after a thorough search of the reeds from both sides, we were unable to locate the second vine snake. Well, if I could not have a mating pair, I could at least claim to have caught a Vine Snake and so I opened up my bag, and released my catch. As we headed off towards the parked car, I looked back and hoped that the two would find each other again, secretly wishing that I had not disturbed them. Sadly I was never again presented with the opportunity of catching another.