Thanks. I am happy it didn't do the cobra pose!
The last time I was in Goa, I was on Baga Hill and watching a Golden Oriole. It was late in the season, early April and the wet season was close, this is when snakes become active, ready to breed.
As I watched the Oriole, I heard a rustle in the leaf litter but thought as many times before, it would be a large bug or lizard going about it's business so didn't look down.
Finally, the Oriole flew off and I lowered my bins, I glanced down to my left and an erect Cobra was watching me from just three feet. I took a long, slow step away from it and it just lowered itself and went off.
I often wonder what may have happened if I'd tried to shift position to see the Oriole better and taken a step towards the snake, we'll never know but they aren't generally aggressive to people and will usually make off at the first chance.
Another encounter I had was with a c3m Reticulated Python. Sam Woods and I were coming down the hill at pace from the Whiskered Pitta site in the Phiippines. As I trudged, head down, a shape in the path instinctively triggered a halt response. Sam almost piled in to the back of me and asked what was wrong, I pointed to a large Python, sat squarely in the middle of the narrow track. The track was so narrow that we couldn't pass the snake without a real chance of being bitted so we decided to poke it with a stick in the hope it would move off.
This was a decent sized snake, it wasn't afraid of us at all and actually tried to bite me. Eventually, after a few minutes of us prodding it and it hissing and lunging at us, it begrudgingly moved in to the trackside vegetation and we were finally able to pass safely.
A picture of the actual Python is attached, you can see it's head is raised.
