What is the species of snake

[Akwia]

Hi
I recorded video using camera trap method on the bird nest of Eastern Yellow Robin, during recording snake ate the chicks. The nest was situated approximately 2.5 m above ground.

Link for video:



The place: Alpine National Park (alongside Upper Rose River) Wangaratta County, near Whithfield, Victoria

GPS position (Garmin):

S36 58.160

E146 32.009

 

[Yellowtail]

Common tree snake or green tree snake (Dendrelaphis punctulata)

 

[Sdaji]

Common tree snake or green tree snake (Dendrelaphis punctulata)

Dude! That's a Tiger Snake! Notechis scutatus.

 

[Yellowtail]

Dude! That's a Tiger Snake! Notechis scutatus.

Oops, you are right I should have watched the video and not made assumptions.

 

[Sdaji]

Oops, you are right I should have watched the video and not made assumptions.

+1!!!

Even in the still frame it's obviously a deadly Tiger! These things literally kill people, it's really not a good idea to tell them they're harmless!

Akwia: Fantastic video by the way! I've seen Tigers foraging in trees and shrubs but not as high as 2.5m. They commonly raid nestling birds, I've seen them do it but never seen such a great video of it. It's quite a nice looking Tiger with that bright yellow belly too.

 

[Yellowtail]

Looks obvious now, maybe I need to go to Spec Savers, I just glanced at it and made the assumption about that high in a tree, Ive never seen a tiger that high up but young ones especially do climb.

 

[RoryBreaker]

I loved the audio of the parent bird going berserk. Quality video. Thanks for posting.

 

[Sdaji]

Looks obvious now, maybe I need to go to Spec Savers, I just glanced at it and made the assumption about that high in a tree, Ive never seen a tiger that high up but young ones especially do climb.

In my experience it's larger ones which are more prone to climbing. Adult Tigers are certainly quite arboreal and birds make up a significant amount of their diet. Identifying snakes for other people, especially when you don't saying anything like "I'm not sure..." isn't something to be taken too lightly when these things literally kill people.

 

[GBWhite]

Great piece of video buddy and as Sdaji said it's the larger ones which are more prone to climbing. Adult Browns are another large ven that are know to climb to take chicks from nests.

When your out in the field herping and you hear birds going off like that it is always a good indicator there is a snake or monitor about.

 

[Akwia]

Thank you for your response.

For me it was first time I encounter snake on the bird nest. I was half an hour late to rescue these chicks.

Cheers
Akwia

 

[Sdaji]

Great piece of video buddy and as Sdaji said it's the larger ones which are more prone to climbing. Adult Browns are another large ven that are know to climb to take chicks from nests.

When your out in the field herping and you hear birds going off like that it is always a good indicator there is a snake or monitor about.

I've heard people say Browns do that and I don't doubt it, but I've never seen it. I've also not come across feather fragments in wild Brownsnake faeces, but I've often seen in in Tigers. I'm not sure why. Maybe some form of observer bias. There were certainly more Tigers than Browns in the areas I spent a lot of time wandering through forest when I was a young fella and had seemingly endless hours to observe it all during the day.

And yeah, large Tigers can happily munch away a nest full of baby birds but a baby Tiger is far too small to be able to and is much more likely to be eaten by a mumma or pappa bird.

 

[GBWhite]

When I lived in Inverell I had a mate who bred native parrots and finches and I wold often get calls to remove Browns who had invaded his cages and helped themselves to chick from nesting boxes that were 1.5 to 2 metres off the ground. I also fond a medium sized adult male in a bird nest in a hollow of a gum about 3 metres off the ground that had by a distinct, large bulge in it's belly making it rather obvious it had helped itself to a good feed of chicks at Brewarrina in central west NSW. I was up the tree trying to catch a Lacie and to my surprise discovered it in the hollow on my way down.

Also did a scat study of several large elapids including Tigers, Highland Copperheads, Blacks & Browns for my final paper for an Advanced Herpetology Course I did with Harry Ehmann at the University of Technology in Sydney in the early 90's where I took scats specimens from wild adult snakes and looked at them under a high powered binocular microscope. I found remnants of unidentified fledgling bird feathers in both a Tiger and Brown. Also positively identified other food items such as native mice and feral rodents and species of lizards from remnants such as claws, fur & teeth and in the case of lizards..,undigested, complete and intact heard shields and feet/toe scales. Other items across the board included small rocks, pieces of twigs and even a small piece of blue plastic bag in one Red Belly Black scat.