Sitting on the veranda, enjoying breakfast, when a sudden scuffle and the flash of scales catches our attention. Dropping what we were doing, we ran forward to find a Western Yellow-bellied Sand Snake had just caught a Striped Skink. Within seconds, the snake's coils were wrapped around its quarry, while the skink's tail, which is often lost through a predator defence mechanism known as Autotomy, was wiggling energetically beside them, but to no avail, there was no distracting this predator from its meal, the skink was given no opportunity to escape.

We sat and watched in awe as the snake slowly began to manoeuvre its prey and little by little, the skink was swallowed, as if on a conveyor belt, into the snake's mouth. As the last piece of the skink disappeared from our view, the snake put its jaw into place and slid over into a nice sunny spot, while this bulge slowly moved along its body.

Watching the process from start to finish was a new experience for me, and it really brought home the fact that we must miss so much of what goes on around us, even in the lodge grounds itself. We are so lucky to be surrounded by nature, and surrounded we are! The lodge is always playing host to all in sundry of creatures, if only we take the time to notice.

The most obvious of the residents here are the birds, they create the background music to the setting, making sure that it is never silent, but at the same time, it is always peaceful. When the trees are bearing fruit, there is a flurry of activity, from the frugivores feeding on the fruit itself; the insectivores hunting the insects attracted to the fruit and the flowers, and of course, we cannot forget about the raptors, like the resident African Goshawk who keep all the above-mentioned weary as they feed. The little water features and ponds are also a great attraction, hosting congregations of Cameropteras, Indigo-birds and BulBuls, to name a few, all bathing and drinking during the day and the chorus of frogs and toads erupting from the water at night.

Bushbuck and Nyala roam the lodge grounds, taking advantage of the fresh greens that are just a little bit juicier than those outside. They wander through the lodge, sometimes unnoticed, and sometimes confidently out in the open for all the world to see. Troops of Baboon and Vervet Monkeys can often be seen foraging in the gardens during the day, especially when the Fig Trees are fruiting. At night, they are replaced by the nocturnal primates we see here, the Thick-tailed and Lesser Bushbabies, moving silently and stealthily through the canopies. This is also when the shyer creatures begin to stir, now is the time of the Small-spotted Genet and the Civet, foraging for a wide range of food, from small vertebrates to invertebrates and fruit. The not-so-shy Hyena may also be seen, attracted to the lodges at night by the smell of dinner cooking, but even their confidence wains when they see someone watching them. Having waterholes in front of numerous lodges, brings in the larger animals, not necessarily into the grounds, but into view from the deck.

When you stop and quietly wait and watch, you can be completely consumed by all that is going on around you. Whether in your garden or a park in the city or in the wilderness of Sabi Sabi, there is never nothing going on, we just need to learn again to step back, and take it all in.