Snake's eye view of the canopy walkway
The Festival was very quiet today. So the birdlife is sulking because there was nothing much to disrupt. However out in the forest things were stirring….snakes. A Japanese birder rushed to our bookstall early on to say he had met a very large snake on the canopy walkway. It was, he said, as thick as a man’s arm and bright green.
BBooks thinks that in his excitement he exaggerated a tiny bit about its girth and that what he saw was a Wagler’s Pit Viper, which is short but quite chunky – and often bright green. Not really quite what you want blocking your path on the walkway. BBooks was frightened by a snake in a big field of long grass in Connecticut when he was 5, and has never been quite the same since. One of his nightmares is to be on a canopy walkway (30m up) at night and discovering that a pit viper is blocking his path in front and then he turns round and another one is behind. Luckily our Japanese friend had only one to deal with and it was daytime. Pit Vipers barely move during the day and even at night they don’t rush about. However when night falls they will strike like lightning at anything challenging or edible within range.
The latest canopy technology.
The Rainforest Discovery Centre’s walkway is third generation and takes this kind of superstructure to a new level of sophistication. Earlier ones were suspended between trees 50m or so apart and not good to be on if an anchor tree collapsed or a branch fell down This one runs between towers and is supported by massive steelwork.
It’s a strange feeling being on a wide footpath 30m up, at the same level as the crowns of the smaller trees (the bigger ones still tower miles above you). You feel anything could happen up there, in an alien world. But not pit vipers, please.
