Adventure at Perenjori - Wildflowers & Lizards

It's amazing what can be achieved in just one weekend. My husband and I had been told this was one of the best wildflower seasons ever. So we decided to travel over 720km just to take in the breathtaking sight of wildflowers (and hopefully a fascinating creature or two) in the Perenjori region. We were not disappointed on either account. We walked for kilometres surrounded by carpets of pink, white and yellow everlastings. Granite outcrops sheltered a variety of orchids, lizards and other creatures including cockroaches that sprayed a foul smelling deterrent designed to protect them from predators. Waterholes were filled with the fattest tadpoles and fat, lazy frogs sheltering under rocks from the perfect blue-sky days. I was so busy enjoying my weekend I managed to capture only a small portion on camera. Enjoy!



Video Music: Strobelites (Escapism) by The Womb can be found at http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/819443

Crawling with Geckos

It’s time to prune the palm trees and I worry about my husband balanced on the top of an extended fire ladder.  It is a long, long way up.  
Using a pruning saw and a length of rope he cuts, pulls and coaxes bunches of berries, spent palm fronds and closed pods from the palm. The berries crash to the ground with an earth shaking thump, the pods spear aggressively into the ground.

However, every now and then he lowers a frond down on a rope. Gently, gently.

These fronds are for me to look at, sheltering little surprises: doe-eyed geckos, a clew of worms, or an occasional spider. There are lots of geckos this time.  I struggle to hold all of them at the same time.  As I try to photograph them with one hand, they run up my arm and out of focus.  They won’t behave and pose for the camera.  I love the feel of their soft padded feet and looking at the colour variations and camouflaging patterns on their scaly skin. 

I have to be careful not to frighten them too much or they will drop their tails in an effort to distract me, so they can escape.  Although the tail will regrow, it is where lizards store their fat supplies to keep them healthy and last them through winter or when food is scarce. 

When the pruning has been finished, I release the geckos onto the trunk of the palm tree.  They don’t take long to run to the top and find a place to hide at the base of the remaining leaves.  At least the geckos are not scared of heights.

Lots of lizards

On the weekend, a typical Perth, blue sky, sunny day, we went four wheel driving with a number of friends.  At one point, in the middle of the track was a large ‘sleepy Joe’, also known as a bob tail skink or blue tongue lizard. So we stopped to get it off the track before it was run over.  Of course everyone came to see why we’d stopped so suddenly.  With so many people around the lizard, it couldn’t be convinced to move in the right direction, so my husband picked it up to take it off the track.  As expected, the lizard wasn’t particularly happy about being handled, opened its mouth threateningly and showed that wonderful, distinctive blue tongue. 

Further along on our expedition I noticed something move behind one of the cars as they were trying to pull up off the main track.  I was out of the vehicle in a flash, camera in hand, so I could photograph a beautiful goanna with golden stripes on its belly.  Being one of Australia’s faster lizards, it didn’t hang around for long, raced off and ducked under a rock ledge.  My husband, who followed, stepped onto a large sheet of stone that rocked back and forth. Worrying that he might have crushed some wildlife under the rock, he lifted it, only to discover an amazing barking gecko.  Handling it gently, we checked that it hadn’t been hurt.  It hadn’t. It was photographed and released it.

Seeing these three completely different lizards was a great experience, especially as some of our friends were new to Australia and hadn’t seen anything like this before.  I particularly loved seeing the leaf gecko as I’d not seen one of these in the wild before, and geckos would have to be one of my favourite creatures. It just shows what you can see when you take the time to look around you when in the bush. Australia has lots of amazing lizards.