16th July, 2012.
It had rained a bit early in the morning. The air was damp with humidity along with the drenched soil. But the overall conditions seemed pleasant for an outing with the camera for insect photography. Trekking up towards the Sarahan Phesantry from a different route than usual, some cool creatures were a guaranteed digital gift for my 4GB memory card. Creatures expected to be encountered included butterflies, beetles, small passerine birds, thrushes, bees and flies hovering over beautiful flowers etc. And skink and agamas among reptiles. But on such wet day I wasn't expecting to find a pit viper, that too Himalayan pit viper (Gloydius himalayanus). Anyway, I was in for a beautiful surprise on the way.
Loreal Pit between the eye and nostril quite prominent.
Keeping a look-out for insects and small birds has a major advantage and that is of paying attention to the minute details of the surrounding which normally skips from our attention. Our normal human eyes turns into Eagle eyes during those moments. So looking for small things guarantees definite spotting of something big. By "Big", I do not mean physical size.
Small stubby Snake, its size doesn't exceed 1 meter.
The pheasantry area is a good habitat for White crested Khalij pheasant (which by the way are also found in enclosures of the pheasantry for public display). A pair or groups of three are usually spotted within the pheasantry premises. While walking up, if you keep your vision to a distance, you will see a female Khalij walking hurriedly up the hill followed by a male or two. Otherwise normally they get panicky and fly off down-slope on being approached too close all of sudden. They were also on the expected list of creatures of the day.
Found in altitudes of 2,100 to 4,900 metres - Wikipedia
Rainy season (monsoon) is a good time for the birds to raise their young since it is a season of plenty. Insatiable hunger of small chirping hatchlings/chicks begging for food could easily be satisfied with grubs, worms and other insects like crane flies and hoppers. So looking out of nests of little birds who make their nests near to the ground surface is difficult but also an interesting thing to do (cheat code = follow your eyes along with a bird with something in mouth flying in hurry). Sometimes you just come upon a nest by chance.
Elliptical Pupil of the Viper eye is a beauty to gaze into.
Just near to the pheasantry's inner gate, something moved under a big boulder. Upon closer inspection, that movement was to be properly defined as something slithered. That slithering creature was the pit viper.
Last time I found one individual of this species at very high altitude of 3400 -3500 meters in open alpine meadows. But this time, this specimen was at decent 2270 meters above mean sea level and in very much different habitat; of thick forests.
Known be shy, snakes normally run away and hide from humans who are not their natural prey. Nevertheless humans have their own agenda with snakes when encountered with one. 90% of that agenda include immediate elimination of the snake with stick or stone. But I had a different agenda which this snake soon found out with camera lens and pesky handling. Its vibrating tail tip and defensive posture with bit of reluctant strikes didn't deter this digitizer of cold blooded beauties. There seemed to be some injury to the snake on the posterior part of it's back where a bump was visible. So the pesky handler took too many chances of holding the snake near the middle part, since holding the snake from its tail might cause it pain at the site of the bump. Too many chances and luck runs out. Finally it happened. Snap !!!! Blood !!! End of story.
Defensive/Offensive Posture of Pit-Viper - Ready to Strike.
(p.s. It is not known to be lethally venomous. I can assure you full confidence, since I am still writing about the incidence 4 days later). ----- (or could be a dry bite))
