Life in the Back Garden

I was trying to get a closer look this morning of the pair of lovely birds that our ragamuffin batch of mynahs was harassing; I have no idea what type of birds they are—and my inept Googling for Queensland birds with green tails and bright blue eye markings brought me no useful results—but they normally restrict themselves to hanging out in the palm trees. This time, they were bailed up in the bushes outside my study window, and it was unusual to see them so close.

Mind, the selfish things were more concerned with not being attacked by the mynahs, who outnumbered them four to one, than they were with holding still for me to take a photograph, so I didn’t manage to snap them in the end.

I had to settle for taking a picture of the blue-tongue, when he emerged to sun himself.

Blue-tongues freak me out a little; I’m not actually scared of them, or of any lizards, though I have a healthy Australian fear of snakes—and that’s the problem, really. Blue-tongues look far more like snakes than any self-respecting lizard should, especially when all I see is the inappropriately orange tail disappearing behind a box in the laundry, and freak out slightly.

You can’t really blame me: Australia has how many of the world’s most poisonous snakes? Almost all of them?

But when the lizard is in the garden, I’m not scared of him.

In fact, I hope his return means that we’ll soon be joined for the summer by our awesome water dragons—who make my day by throwing themselves off the roof, or climbing down the mulberry tree and then throwing themselves down the yukka as though it were a slide, or coming and lying on the verandah at my feet when it’s raining, or haring across the garden on their back legs, or occasionally wandering into the living room looking for insects.

And our bearded dragon, who’s a little less interesting, because he’s slower and closer to the ground, but who’s still nice to have around.

And our geckos, who are the great joy of my life. I don’t think people who were raised in the North can actually appreciate how strange it is to a Southerner to have these little pink lizards running freely through the house. I adore them—and am grateful that the primary insect-killing role in the house is taken by them and not, as in N.S.W., but huntsmen spiders.

We’re a lizardy household. And better that than spiders the size of teacups.