Rainforest Drama at Your Doorsteps : The Snake and The Gecko

This happened in July 2008 when my daughter and me were invited by our neighbours to visit Lambir Hills National Park. We live in Miri but don’t visit the park enough.

On this occasion we were resting at the Latak Waterfall, the one with the picnic grounds. While we were standing there we heard ‘plop’ and saw the tree snake that had fallen from the trees struggling with its prey, a gecko. The pictures tell the whole story.

In the end the snake was so disturbed by the attention he (or she?) received that he/she left its prey and swam across the water.

One of the bystanders was so kind to throw the snake’s picnic lunch to the other side of the stream.

You may ask why we only now come with this story and pictures: the reason is that I found out recently that one of the photographers at the event, a 14-year old Dutch boy, received a recommendation from the 2009 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest (see Link) for a picture of the same event!

As a member of the MNS I thought it might be good to share my pictures with you. The pictures were taken with a Nikon D50 with the standard 18-55 mm lens.

Liv Jorunn van der Toorn/MNS Miri/May 2010













If you have any interesting items you've captured in Lambir Hills National Park and would like to share it with others, please email mnsmiri@yahoo.com, we'll help you publish it here on these pages.