One day late in my stay in Tanay I took a rare excursion off the trail and went looking for wildlife in one of the deepest, wildest areas, down near the stream where vegetation was relatively thick and the debris of the forest settled around the ground.
Hunting in that area I came across one of the neatest reptiles I’ve ever seen – the Spiny Waterside Skink!
The Spiny Waterside Skink is part of a unique group of lizards called “stream skinks” which like to spend time in water as well as land. But the Spiny Waterside Skink is doubly unique due to the hard spiky scales that line its body as a defense against predators.
I let the lizard go and continued searching the forest, and just a few minutes later came across a second one. Look at those spikes! If you were a small animal searching for a lizard meal you wouldn’t want to mess with those. 🙂
One of the wonderful staff at Sakahang Lilok shared that she occasionally saw a coral snake while she worked in the farm’s vegetable garden. I had shown her pictures of the snakes in the area and she confirmed that what she saw was a Barred Coral Snake.
Though it rarely bites, the Barred Coral Snake is a venomous species and one needs to exert caution when around them. I came to Lilok back in 2017 to give a talk on snakes and how we can coexist with them on the farm, as well as what to do in the unlikely event that someone gets bit by a venomous snake. This staff member took in all of that and I can trust that she will do the right thing when she sees such snakes.
Four different geckos photographed at the Rizal ReCreation Center. Clockwise from top left are Flat-tailed House Gecko, Mourning Gecko, Common House Gecko, and Four-clawed Gecko
If you leave a light on and watch the moths, pretty soon some geckos, or “butiki”, will end up creeping up near the light to snatch some of the moths flying around it. These gobbling geckos help control insects in the farm.
Geckos are great friends with which to share our homes and forests. Despite some silly rumors, geckos are completely harmless to people – they’re only dangerous to those insect guests that we sometimes wish would stay outside! In our area we have many different kinds of geckos. I’m going to focus on the four small ones, the little butiki, that you’ll see on the walls of buildings in Lilok and other homes. (I already talked about the big one, the tuko, in an earlier post.)
The Four-clawed Gecko, also known as the Stump-toed Gecko, is the most common gecko at Lilok Farm. You can see them running around the dining hall, sometimes on the walls and sometimes on the ground.
Emerald Tree Skink in Mindanao, ZooKeys 624, (Rafe Brown / CC BY)
My wife and I were hiking through the jungle adjacent to Sakahang Lilok when our little baby Sophia decided to take a nap. To make her as comfortable as possible I found a shady spot with a good view of the massive trees above, and laid down for her to sleep.
For the first 45 minutes, I didn’t see anything to note. With the pleasant sounds of the waterfall and birds around me, I slowly scanned the branches of the trees with my eyes. Sometimes I just rested and enjoyed being in nature. It was a really calm, pleasant way to sit in the forest.
Then I saw it. An Emerald Tree Skink, making its way around a branch about 20 meters above the ground, inspecting the airplants for bugs to eat.
The Reticulated Python is the world’s longest snake, sometimes reaching over seven meters in length (though usually half that size). They are a fascinating, beautiful animal, a wonderful sight for any wildlife enthusiast. But what do you do when a huge snake wants to steal your chickens?
I first became engaged with Sakahang Lilok due to an email I received from an old friend who helped to found the farm. It went like this:
On the Lilok Farm we have a good number of snakes in the forest. Well – mostly in the forest. Occasionally they venture out, mainly to find food. Which is fine in principle. But they like chickens. And the people don’t like them feasting on hens. Generally the people do not appreciate the snakes much and have a tendency to want to kill them, wherever possible. Also because they add protein to the food…
On the Lilok Farm the appreciation of snakes is slightly higher. We also got two guys who handle snakes well. But the chicken topic is also a matter of concern…
Some of us really do not want to see any snakes killed. But sometimes their presence can feel a bit overwhelming. The neighbours are not so impressed with our appreciation of snakes. They are scared. A Rocha recommended to inform the neighbours and anyone interested better about snakes. Introduce them to the mystery of them and their beauty. Perhaps you would be the person to do this.
The email was accompanied by the following picture of a Reticulated Python that had been caught as it attempted to sneak in and take some chickens:
Reticulated Python caught at Lilok Farm
Humans have struggled to coexist with pythons for a long time. They have almost everything going against them – they are frightening, they eat our domestic animals, they make a decent dinner, they have beautiful skins, and they are snakes. In several places where I have done work – Thailand, Bangladesh, the Philippines – the conflict between pythons and people has been an issue.
I agreed to do a presentation at Sakahang Lilok at a time when I was going to be in the Manila area already for a conference. It ended up being a blast, with 15 participants from two farms and several partner organizations.
Animals of Tanay 