Egg-Eater Snakes
Last night, my neighbour suddenly came running to say a snake was raiding one of his guinea fowl nests. He had gone out in the dark to take an egg for his supper and had “put in his hand and touched something soft.” Quickly shining his torch he discovered that it was a snake. Perhaps he should have shone the torch first, and then he would have seen where he was putting his hand. However, in this case he was lucky!
The snake turned out to be a beautiful red Egg-Eater who had just managed to swallow one of the hard-shelled eggs into her throat by the time I got there. Our local egg eaters usually are grey but we get the occasional red ones and we are always glad to see any of them.
The helpless snake regurgitated the egg when I picked her up. The egg didn’t break, as guinea fowl eggs have strong shells. My neighbour was able to rinse it off and add the egg to his meal!