Falling in Love with Greeny

Green Vine Snake on a nature walk at The Serai Kabini

It was a cold-blooded snake. Harmless. Small birds, rodents and insects may disagree. But to us humans… harmless. The Green Vine Snake should have fled at the sight of us approaching. Instead he (she?) hung like a bright green rope draped across tall strands of brown grass. Sunning. Poor creature looked so vulnerable! Morning dew drops like diamond studs on its head. In fact it was a pretty head; almost feminine. Must have been female.

Dew drops on the cold-blooded creature

We tread over bamboo bridges that straddled gurgling streams; photographed sun-kissed wild flowers; listened to the symphony of birds, happy to greet a new day; stopped by an ancient temple that was wreathed in a legend plucked out of the Ramayana…

We ran into her on an early morning bird-watching hike while staying at The Serai, a river-front wildlife lodge on the outskirts of Kabini Tiger Reserve in Karnataka. Sukanta Das, the resident naturalist, was an encyclopedia of information on all things relating to the cycle of life. Bird behaviour. Spiders’ webs. Alien weeds running wild in Indian forests…

Patterns in the wilderness

Beauty sunbathing in the wild

And then we met Greeny. That’s what we named her – a green queen. Beautiful. If snakes had a beauty contest she would be in the final five… and crowned Miss Snake World if we were on the panel of judges.