© irene waters 2016
© irene waters 2016
The Australian Blue Tongue lizard gets its common name from the blue tongue that the lizard uses to frighten its attackers. Sadly it often doesn’t frighten them and the blue tongue suffers at the paws of cats and dogs and the blades of motor mowers as they hide in the grass rather than run from a threat. There are six varieties of this Blue tongued skink in Australia meaning that most Australian back yards have at least one living in it. I know I have at least two in my garden. Normally they eat snails and beetles, sun in the day and move very slowly. If they are cornered they will bite but are not venomous. The bite will be strong enough though to break the skin and cause a bruise. A housewives tale says that the bite will never properly heal and break open every so often. I have never been bitten so I don’t know the truth of this but I think it more likely to be an urban myth.
I was invited by Judy Dykstra-Brown to take up the gauntlet and participate in a 7 day nature posting challenge. As part of the challenge I am to nominate a person on each of the seven days I post a photograph. They are under no obligation to join in but wonderful if they do.
Today I invite Mark Lambert from Mark Lambert’s photography to join the nature photo challenge if he would like to.
About Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist
I began my working career as a reluctant potato peeler whilst waiting to commence my training as a student nurse. On completion I worked mainly in intensive care/coronary care; finishing my hospital career as clinical nurse educator in intensive care. A life changing period as a resort owner/manager on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu was followed by recovery time as a farmer at Bucca Wauka. Having discovered I was no farmer and vowing never again to own an animal bigger than myself I took on the Barrington General Store. Here we also ran a five star restaurant. Working the shop of a day 7am - 6pm followed by the restaurant until late was surprisingly more stressful than Tanna. On the sale we decided to retire and renovate our house with the help of a builder friend. Now believing we knew everything about building we set to constructing our own house. Just finished a coal mine decided to set up in our backyard. Definitely time to retire we moved to Queensland. I had been writing a manuscript for some time. In the desire to complete this I enrolled in a post grad certificate in creative Industries which I completed 2013. I followed this by doing a Master of Arts by research graduating in 2017. Now I live to write and write to live.
Lizards that eat pests are welcome in my garden as it used to be overridden with snails that destroyed the plants. We still enjoy seeing our lizards but they are much smaller than your skinks – and ours have no blue tongues to amuse us. This one must have been pleased to have his picture taken as he didn’t stick out his tongue at you – I had to go on line to see the blue tongue. Did you name your two, Irene?
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I can’t say I have named them but they probably both think they are called “Muffin/Bundy come here”. Glad you saw the tongue on line. It is quite a sight but mine are too busy scurrying back to safety (I have two intelligent ones) that I don’t get to see the tongues that often.
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Muffin/Bundy come here – I’m laughing so hard, I’m falling off the chair.
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How big are these lizards, Irene? We have lots of skinks here – brilliant colors. For some reason, Elijah Moon and Angel are not at all interested.
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Maybe a foot or more long. Medium size. You are lucky – dogs and cats seem to be attracted to ours. I thought perhaps they had a smell as they always know when they are about.
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We have plenty of lizards here in Florida, but none that are very large except for the iguanas that people release into the wild because they get too large as pets. Iguanas aren’t native to Florida so when the temperature drops in the winter, they become stunned and fall from trees to the ground below. They’re fairly large so this can be disconcerting. Those that aren’t killed by the fall wake up when it warms up and resume their business.
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You’d get a bit of a shock if you were standing underneath when one fell. We get monitor lizzards here which are called goannas and are very similar to iguanas. Huge lizzards but harmless.
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