African Puff Adder

 As head of security for Coutada 5, District of Machanga, Sofala Province, Mozambique, I was hunting poachers in the mopane forest of central Mozambique, about thirty-five miles from the Indian ocean, when I cut the trail of a Nyala bull.  I decided to follow the animal.  The grass was about a foot high with scattered leaves on the ground.  As I slowly crept along the doves suddenly ceased their singing, the bush fell silent. I froze.  The song of Africa had stopped. It is as if the birds and animals were warning me something was about to happen.  Everything was holding its breath and watching.  My heart pounded as I looked around.  Then, as if it materialized from nowhere, there it was, three feet in front of me.  The sinister coil of a huge puff adder.  Its brown and grey leaf pattern made it almost invisible.  They hunt by lying await in ambush.  One of the deadliest snakes in Africa.  In another step, I would have been dead.  

I know that no one ever sees small snakes.  They are always huge, but this puff adder was as big around as a man's arm and four feet long.    
As I eased back and circled around the snake I heard the Nyala before I saw him.  The snake had distracted me, ruining my stalk.  He was a nice bull, with his horns laid back, he ran through the thick forest with amazing ease.  In a flash, he was gone, but I was still alive.  Bush sense had saved my life.  That and my doves with their song of Africa.  
In Africa, there is no such thing as being “at the top of the food chain.”  Everything, man included, is both predator and prey. 

Marshall K Warren