I enjoyed reading this Joan. You have some cool creatures there. Do you know what kind of snake it was?
That Pansy Blue butterfly is absolutely gorgeous, I've never seen one of those, they must be further north from me, I'll look up their distribution.
Where you see type within the content that is blue, it indicates a link to where one can research a little more detail.
Link takes you to Kloof Conservancy - Steve Woodhall - President of the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa offers insight and detail.
Thanks Joan, I did go back and gave it a read. I'm familiar with Steve Woodhall, he published some of the butterfly books of SA.
I need to actually learn more about the butterflies in different areas, I only know the Cape Town ones really well from butterfly surveys.
Work associate of 19 years Allan Plowes had an interesting large collection, enthusiastically shared knowledge,
I believe his collection was donated to the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa by his son before he moved to the UK. Acknowledgements to Allan Plowes in "What's that Butterfly?: A starter’s guide to butterflies of South Africa" By Steve Woodhall
Think it was red-lipped herald snake, once sliding door opened it was out in a flash!
Butterflies visiting at the moment are varied, here on the South Coast of Durban we see greater numbers end of February into March.
!Happy Valentine's Day
I quite like red lipped heralds. They are one of the easily identifiable ones and generally not aggressive. I've handled a few, I'm glad they were able to escape through the sliding door and get back outside. Most snakes realise they made a mistake very quickly when they see a human approach them, shame we must be quite scary just size wise alone from their perspective.