Venturing out

With the weather warming up our reptiles are starting to venture out from their winter retreats and today was my first sighting of a Yellow-faced Whip Snake this season.

 Our rock garden is one of their favourite spots with lots of crevices to enable a quick retreat if danger is perceived. Although poisonous, they are quite small and generally not likely to be harmful to humans.

Three's a crowd

Marting season is well under way for the Yellow-faced Whip Snakes but it can get rather hectic with females being chased under and over their rocky habitat. Today there was a bit of competition as a couple of males were trying to tie the knot with a female, but three's a crowd and she untangled and made her escape.

Yellow face close up

A rustle in the fallen leaves in the rocks around the pool gave away the position of this Yellow-faced Whip Snake, whose sunbaking I had disturbed as I was about to start cleaning some leaves from the pool.
 It then spent a few minutes deciding what would be the best crack or hole in which to retreat. as it poised at this crack I was able to get a nice portrait.