An uninvited guest
Here at Jaci’s we pride ourselves on the level of hospitality that we deliver, and welcome all of our guests, from all over the world with the same feeling of pride for our home. We recently, however had to forcibly remove a guest from our lodge.
A fairly large Puff Adder was found on the main walkway, heading straight towards one of our suites. Now, the Puff Adder has a rather bad reputation in South Africa, as the venomous snake that bites the most people on a yearly basis. This is not because they are the most aggressive, but more because they are the most common. So removing the offending snake from the lodge was obviously a priority. We followed the right procedure, so as not to hurt the snake, safely using snake tongs and a cooler box. No one got hurt!
Image by Darren Donovan
We then took the Puff Adder to the staff compound, and educated some of the staff about the snakes, and how to safely handle the situation (should a snake be seen). We removed the Puff Adder from the cooler, and I took the opportunity to get a few pics of this beauty.
I started by setting my exposure to the surrounding sand. I wanted a medium to high aperture, and settled on F10. The trick was however, that I wanted a shutter speed of about 1/640 sec, so I could freeze the tongue movements. That’s the shot that I wanted!
Image by Darren Donovan
After the photo shoot, the Puff Adder was put back in the cooler and released back into the reserve, far enough away from the lodge, not to be a problem guest again.
Photos and text by Darren Donovan