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.
One local animal that might be great at snatching up those Longhorn Beetles is the Four-lined Treefrog. Also known as the Common Treefrog, this acrobatic resident spends nearly all of its time above the ground. Take a walk close enough to the water bodies that it likes to call home (I often find them near streams) and you’ll see them dotted among the trees.
A few of the Four-lined Treefrogs I’ve seen at Lilok and Laguna
With their big heads, awkward long legs, and bulbous toepads on the end of long toes, Four-lined Treefrogs look a bit clownish. And they have a call to match! Depending on the mood, they will sound like a “quack!” from a duck or some mechanic chuckling. So if you are walking through the forest at night, and you hear a frog laughing at you, you’ll know who it is.
The Brown Shrike, known as “pakis-kis” or “tarat” in Tagalog, is a cute little bird with a chattering call, often seen perched on branches or farm buildings. The subspecies of Brown Shrike found in the Philippines, lucionensis, has a grey head, though Brown Shrikes from other parts of Asia have brown heads.
Unlike the much larger Red-crested Malkoha or the sharp-billed Spotted Wood Kingfisher, the Brown Shrike is a little, gentle bird and couldn’t possibly be a hunter. Right?
One day I was hanging out at the Rizal Re-Creation Center when a friend came up to me.
“They killed a snake over by the swimming pool. You should have been there. Maybe you would have been able to stop it.”
It turned out that while some workers were trimming branches from trees, they had come across a large green snake in the tree. Reacting with the fear and aggression that many people show when they see snakes, the worker rushed away to get a machete, and then came back to cut the snake to pieces.
My friend took a photo of what was once a beautiful Red-tailed Green Ratsnake (sometimes called a Red-tailed Racer).
Animals of Tanay 