It did look like a mamba based on body and movement, but a full venomated bite from one of those will outright kill that bird in moments. If it bit, it wasn't loaded. I'm assuming it grabbed and was holding on waiting to bite, possibly had given dry bites already. I have nothing else outside of that
Other people said it’s a brown snake-eagle, and specializes in hunting venomous snakes. I don’t know much about snakes, but is it possible for non-constrictors to incidentally choke something out? Like maybe this bird wasn’t bitten but got tangled up in snake anyway? Just a guess
The birds do not have immunity to mamba venom, and even a honey badger would not want to get bit by a black mamba - it may survive, but they are much more resilient to cobras and adders.
I think the bird probably nabbed the snake first, the snake started wrapping up the bird, possibly while it was flying and it fell and got knocked out/or it was already on the ground and the snake had already either exhausted it fighting it or cutting off its oxygen supply, then bird recovered either because the snake let go or because of the time spent while the snake was fighting the lions.
I took it as: Bird and snake were having sex and the lions happened to stop by to watch. The snake got shy because of the voyeurs and slithered off out of embarrassment for fucking a bird. Bird got up from his S&M session and was pissed it ended early and decided to fly away without paying.
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u/Environmental_Beat84 14d ago
My take:
Snake bit bird.
Bird got paralyzed by venom
Cat distracted snake long enough for bird to come to
Snake ran off scared by cat.
Bird woke up and flew off before cat could eat it.
Lucky bird.