Slender Tree Boa

Meeting a night visitor: Slender Tree Boa.

The Slender Tree Boa is one of my favorite snakes. Quite often I spot the brown version hiding in trees, but from time to time I also meet the orange version. I met this orange Slender Tree Boa in the abandoned house next to the mango trees.

Since this house has been abandoned for years it became a home for bees and bats. At night time the bats move out and that's when this tree boa becomes active. I first spotted this small, 1.5 meters long, snake all curled up in a corner and when the bats started to move it moved too. Not as fast as them but slowly and alert. Waiting to attack.

Here I managed to take a close up picture while it was fully focused on hunting.

A couple of times the bats managed to escape from its tight grip but quite often it succeeded. Here it caught a bat and while strangling the prey it started to swallow it too at the same time. 

After a successful meal the Slender Tree Boa will crawl up in a corner of the house and will stay there for hours.