A Golden Tree Snake

My Wish Granted

Ever since my first encounter some 3 years back, I have always wanted to know the identity of this snake. Now I do; it is a Golden Tree Snake - much appreciation to Google Image search for helping me.

Ever since I took this rather uninspiring picture some 14 months back, I have always wanted to redeem myself. Now I have, as my luck would have it one fine morning in the month of June 2015.

From afar, this snake looks a bit yellowish-green. But when viewed up close, once can clearly see that it is not. More yellowish than golden, I think.

This snake has been quite a regular visitor to my home in recent years. Perhaps there are a few of them as I have seen a couple, of various sizes, over the last 3 years. Good thing though that it is not venomous to humans. I have never encountered this snake before a decade ago. I wonder if one or two may have escaped from sombody's exotic pet collection somewhere?

This snake is a great climber. Not just on shrubs and trees (some on vertical trunks, without branches) but on unplastered rough bricked walls too. I had witnessed one myself not too long ago.

But it has one strange habit though. When frightened, it has a tendency of letting itself fall to the ground, while high up (that's where I usually find them); and then just slither away quickly. I have been caught by surprise for a couple of times as I was totally unaware of its presence. A snake falling at just a few feet away is never a soothing thought - venomous or not.

There have been accounts by some people saying that this snake can glide in the air, very much like the Paradise Tree Snake. But I have yet to witness one myself. I would sure love to, one of these days.

Camera Settings

For some reason, setting my Nikon compact camera (a Coolpix L27) to 'Auto' mode seems to produce blurry pictures. Steadying my hand with a wooden pole didn't help either.

But setting it to 'Sunset' mode did, luckily; and without the help of a wooden pole.

Since I knew beforehand that this snake is harmless, some shots were taken while I was about 2½ feet away - well, the snake looks friendly enough and it doesn't look threatening. These shots were taken with a zoom level of 5x, 16 Megapixels. The snakes head is about the size of an adult human thumb. The squares on the wire fencing (it doesn't look like it but they are squares) is about 1¼" x 1¼" in dimension. The length of this particular snake is about 2½ to 3 feet in length.

Note the hexagonal-like pattern on the snake's back in the picture above. Here another view.

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