No, I'm talking about reptile visitors who are often seen perched atop one of my couches, sunning themselves and feeling right at home. These however tend to be small Eastern Skinks (about 15-20cm long) that live in the damp course around the house and they're very handy for eating fallen corpses around skirting boards. Which I appreciate because it means I don't have to deploy the Dyson crevice tool.
I'm a chronic bring-the-outdoors-in person and have every damn window and door open in the fine weather.) I'm pretty accustomed to the odd magpie flapping stupidly in the corner. I had a bat in the shower once. Yesterday however, I had a rather larger visitor who decided to wander in through the open French doors. A particularly handsome Blue Tongued Lizard.
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| Don't you dare go behind that cabinet! |
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| Or turn around and go under the filing cabinets! |
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| Such a disobedient reptile, nobody ever listens to me |
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| Ah turning tail and heading outside |
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| Ah a little sun before departure |
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| Finally out on the patio and being ushered into the bushes. The leaf is about 5cm long. |
31 comments:
We used to end up with lizards in the house all the time when we lived in Florida, but they were all more the size of the leaf next to your guy.
That's awesome. I want one.
O.M.G. I would scream bloody murder if I had one in my house. I just would not know what to do. Do they bite? ugh. I don't like killing anything so that wouldn't happen but how the heck do you shoo them out so they can do their job but not be liable to crawl in your bed? aaaackkk!
Lizards are SO not my thing, but I have to admit that this guy is kind of cute.
wow--we have nothing like that...lizards are the mostest awesomest
so, where's this awesome couch...was your doggie sleeping on it when she should have been guarding against reptile invasions?
Those guys freak me out... yep I'm a real scaredy cat when it comes to big reptiles.
Fortunately for me we don't have them that big here... just have to deal with snakes in the cupboard.
Thanks for sharing this... great captures
x
I like the mental picture I'm getting of you stalking him (her?) all around the room!
I'm okay with lizards as long as they don't move too fast. It's the scuttling move that freaks me out.
It's very awesome..but I don't want one! ha.
They're very beautiful. Do they eat funnelwebs, mousespiders and redbacks..? It's those creepy crawlies (not the lizards, or even snakes) that put me and most Brits off visiting Australia. You gotta bear in mind we have only one poisonous snake, the adder, which is barely venomous at all, two poisonous insects the bee and the wasp (what Americans call the yellowjacket). We do have hornets but they're so rare I've only seen them once and that was in France. Hornets live strictly in deep woodland, they don't come bothering people's houses. We do actually have scorpions. There's one railway station where they abound, I've seen it on TV. But these tiny little things are so weak they can't even get their stinger into a grown man's little finger. I still don't like them though. All spiders are poisonous. They have to be to digest their prey. But we have no toxic spiders indiginous to these islands. We don't have earthquakes, cyclones, tornados, volcanos or mudslides. It's THIS more than true racism that makes Brits wary of the rest of the world. Living in an island that's so clement and safe, the rest of the planet seems a distinctly dangerous place... see what I mean.
I keep forgetting to ask: are you British born? Or of recent British ancestry? Or are you one of those old crims!!!!
Before you get all offended, bear in mind I have 6 cousins born in Sydney to my 2 uncles, one from each side of the family, who both emigrated as £10 Poms in the late 60s. I was very nearly born in Adelaide. Only a visa hitch kept us in this country. Otherwise I might have been addicted to your posh China white instead of the cheapo shitty Afghan brown that prevails in this country. A drug I never want anything to do with ever again.
I'm so desperate I actually was considering sending myself to the moon on cannabis. When I have gone mad before I lost all interest in drugs, so it seems almost worthwhile losing my marbles for the sake of being "clean".
Problem was, that last "episode" was so incredibly jarring I spent several days in a chair staring at a non-tuned in telly. If you imagine how you might feel waking up after a road accident covered in bandages, unable to do anything but lie there and heal... that's how I felt. Not good. I once DID get hit on the head by a truck and I can tell you, whatever it was happened that time when I started hearing voices and went all manic, that was CONSIDERABLY more powerful than the concussion I got from being bashed on the head by several tonnes of machinery. Which says an awful lot about psychosis.
I don't really want to be mad. I don't want to be a drug addict either. And if sanity means low grade misery for years on end to be frank I'd rather have madness. At least madness was interesting while it lasted. Sad but true!
What I'm trying to tell you is:
I want to be WELL. Not OK in a half-arsed way. Truly WELL.
How on earth that's gonna happen I haven't the faintest clue!
PS if you wouldn't mind answering the ancestry query, just leave a comment at mine.
As you know I'm still pretty crap with email.
It has partly to do with having joined about 200 various clubs and sites, all of which insist on an email and then deluge me with crap for months afterwards. Add to this the endless Viagra ads and I find it very difficult indeed to filter my true friends from adverts for Rabbits of the non-furry variety, "little blue pills" (not Valium, unfortunately) and other things that buzz in the night. I should pass this shit on to my housemate. One particular person has an obsession with electric shavers at 2am .... well something emanates an irritating buzzing from behind her door at that unearthly hour. Perhaps she just has really hairy legs... who knows..!!
I was going to buy a rabbit myself, the enormous sort you put in a harness and walk to the papershop, but there's too many aggressive dogs about and I'd kill myself if some swine murdered by lopsy-eared bunny. Really I'd rather have a chinchilla. I love chinchillas. They're like bunny rabbits from Mars.
Wasn't it you who told me they need a special marble you put in the freezer so they can stretch out luxuriously on hot summer days without overheating.
Interestingly the Siberian hammies I used to have also had ultra-soft fur, took dust baths too (though the idiot who wrote the £4.95 guide book I purchased from the pet-shop omitted to include this vital information. Dust-bathing in sawdust is NOT condusive to a nicely conditioned coat. Once I altered their cage litter to cat litter they got ultra-furry and looked poppier-eyed and tubbier than ever before!) Also they simply could not tolerate the 40C+ temperatures in my attick room at high summer. I got out an ice-cube tray and let them have a little ramble on that with their fur-soled feet and they loved it. They also liked rambling about in the freezer. They DO after all come from Siberia so this was hardly an act of cruelty. Kindness, not cruelty. They adored it.
Well at least if you get bored you can have a game with the marbles... OK OK I know they're not little balls, it's a stone chopping board, I know.
How do I despam my email without changing address? I quite like being called Hammynutter. I'm just fed up of these Viagra ads. Bloody spam. I don't even eat pork. Why can't they call it corned beef instead. I quite like corned beef but have you noticed how it's practically DOUBLED in price over the past couple of years. A large-ish tin used to be £1, now it's about £1.69. Scandalous!!
Now I must ping. The most dreadful music is ponging out of my TV and it's really doing my head in. Also my fag's gone out and I'm desperate for a puff.
Take it easy and have a fantastical new year 2011 {{;->....
our dog killed a number of blue tongues when he was younger and i havent seen any at our place since :(
What a beauty.
He's so beautiful, Baino.Such lovely clear markings. I haven't seen a blue-tongue for quite a while. The lizard that shows up occasionally in my yard is a stump-tail.
I don't see how anyone can be afraid of such pretty and harmless creatures.
to me it's like having a mini alligator in the house. I think I'd run shrieking...and then sneak back for a closer look at his red spots
I loved all the lizards I saw while I was walking round Sydney. I like the way they can totally freeze for as long as you're looking at them, and then the moment you move on they're off into the undergrowth like greased lightning.
when we lived in FL we used to have lizards all the time....my cat loved them...for breakfast...
Just read Brian's comment...
bwahahaha!
Oh God!This is one loundge lizard!:D
Beautiful creature. Do they bite?? Would love to see what my two cats would do faced with him! :)
Re the queries, do they bite? Most lizard species are no threat to humans. Some of the very big ones can sometimes kill and one or two have painful bites. But many types of lizard are kept as household pets.
I owe you a public apology. I am sorry. I misread you.
Blue tongue! Now that's kinky!
He is a rather LARGE fellow to lounge UNinvited in your living room! My sons would think that AWESOME if we had such a creature come in!
Oooooh he's lovely - I adore blue tongue lizards!
Trouble is, so does Milly the dog. Over in South Australia at my folks' place for Christmas she found two and chewed their tails off!
Your lizard looks about as long (but much fatter!) as the Leopard Gecko Son #1 used to keep as a pet.
and robyn's talking about snakes in the cupboards as if that's calmer than a lizard slithering on the rug!
i would be fascinated. i don't think i'd panic the way i would with a bat or a very large spider. but...if it didn't slither outside on its own, i don't know what i would do. i know i couldn't touch it. aaaaaagh!
My goodness, you live in the jungle. Get the rat poison out woman.
same here except the cat people have their share..sk
My son would LOVE a lizard. I, on the other hand, could not handle it at all. I wish I wasn't so skittish around bugs, lizards, etc. I think it's great that you just accept it and can then take pictures of it!
If this was a smaller beetlie-roachie-creepy-crawlie with many legs....I would have died from fright - but I happen to adore lizards - all sizes and colours.
This one is gorgeous and his blue tongue only adds to his "good looks". I love that fact you let him stay a while and bask in the sun!
♥ Robin ♥
He's beautiful. We had one live in the garden for ages in a hole under the cement path in the garden. My mother, on a visit, emptied the corned beef water by mistake right where he lived (luckily cool)resulting do doubt in a salty splashing with a hint of clove and onion.
I've had a cockatoo fly into the back seat of the car when returning two little girls from a sleep-over resulting in screams of hysteria along the highway. The girls made more noise than the cockatoo and that's saying something.
Did you hear that Brisbane airport is closed because of the flooding? More rains to come!
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