“While trying to capture some birds taking their evening bath at a waterhole, this Red-Legged Crake (Rallina fasciata) kept nonchalantly walking back and forth, as if hinting for me to leave before taking its turn at the waterhole…
“I continued to watch the Short-tailed Babblers (Malacocincla malaccensis), Red-eyed Bulbuls (Pycnonotus brunneus) and Olive-winged Bulbuls (P. plumosus) as they took their daily dip, then as they meticulously preened themselves. As I was preparing to leave, I heard a prolonged scrabbling in the dry vegetation, and peering through the leaves, I managed to get this semi-blocked clip of I believe the same crake repeatedly pecking at a small snake, then swallowing it head first:”
Lena Chow
Singapore
28th Juky 2012
2 Responses
I have a sneaky feeling that it’s a caecilian or the common blind snake, an amphibian.
Too big in relation to the Crake to be the common blind snake (Typhlops brahminus). I believe that I saw a distinct differentiation between the head and the body diameter of the snake being eaten. Such a difference in diameter is not characteristic of Typhlops, most species of which are more or less the same diameter throughout most of their length.
There are many small terrestial snakes in Singapore that would be small enough to be eaten by a brave Crake. Though I cannot identify that snake positively, a possible candidate is Lycodon aulicus, the Common House Snake.
Caecilians are slimy, and are also more or less the same diameter throughout. I did not get the impression from the video that the prey was slimy.