Betrisher
Well-known member
- Jun 3, 2013
- 4,253
- 177
- Parrots
- Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
This is by way of a continuation of my post under Bundii's magpie thread.
Once we had Mr Magpie safely installed in a chaff bag in the back of the car, Mum and I drove on down the country lane. I was in the process of collecting wildflowers and invertebrates for Botany 200 and Zoology 250 respectively, so we were equipped with various bottles, jars, paper bags and a butterfly net.
We hadn't been driving long when I spied another amazing thing on the side of the road. A rather large Bearded Dragon lizard had crawled to the top of a fencepost and conveniently died there! Flies were buzzing all around his cadaver and I thought to myself that his skeleton would make a marvellous specimen for my Zoology major work that term.
"Sto-o-oop, Mum", I squawked!
Mum stomped on the brake and I nearly flew through the windshield to meet Mr Lizard (RIP) on his fencepost. I marched right up and seized him just behind his forelegs, hoping against hope that decomposition wasn't so bad that his skeleton would fall apart in my hand. The attending flies set up an angry buzzing, but that wasn't what caught my immediate attention...
You can imagine my acute chagrin as I realised that not only was Mr Lizard quite alive and well, but he was also quite p***** off! He shot out his submandibular 'beard', sucked in a bellyful of air and hissed at me like a dyspeptic kettle! All I could do was hang on to the beast, because I believed he would eat me if I set him down again. There was nothing for it but to carry the thing home and hope for a solution there. With Great Misgiving, my poor little Mum was forced to drive home with me sitting beside her clutching an irascible reptile who periodically writhed and hissed and basically gave us his basilisk-like evil eye!
I digress to say these guys aren't so very big: this one was only about two feet long. They can, however, give you a really septic bite because they feed on carrion and therefore harbour unspeakable bacteria in their mouths. Not only that, but the claws are pretty formidable as well: easily half-an-inch long and five of them on each lizardly little footsie!
Once home, I gratefully put the squirming animal into our pink bathtub for a nice rest while I rang some of my Sources. All Australian reptiles are protected, so it would have been illegal (and immoral) of me to kill Mr Lizard as a specimen. Somehow, I had to find a way to repatriate him somewhere safe. In the meanwhile, Mr Lizard had retreated to the far end of the bathtub right up under the tap. I was very interested to note that he quickly changed colour from chocolate brown to beige in an attempt to match his environment. This worked very well for him but not so well for others...
Hours later, my Dad came home from work. Tired and messy (he was a butcher), Dad headed straight for the bathroom and a restorative soak in the tub. As usual, he stood under the shower nozzle to wash off the grime before drawing a bath. Not quite as usual, an enraged lizard ran up his leg, eyeballed him angrily and hurtled off again to hiss indignantly at my father's retreating bottom.
This was the first (and only) time in my life I ever saw my father naked. It was not a pretty sight, mostly owing to the purple hue of his face as he squealed at me.
"Why, Patricia? Why is there a bloody crocodile in my bathtub? A man can't turn round in this house any more! You've got me in fear of my life!"
... and he went off muttering something about other men's daughters and dolls.
Eventually, I released Mr Lizard back into the wild and his release was also something of a fraught moment. But that's another boring story.
Once we had Mr Magpie safely installed in a chaff bag in the back of the car, Mum and I drove on down the country lane. I was in the process of collecting wildflowers and invertebrates for Botany 200 and Zoology 250 respectively, so we were equipped with various bottles, jars, paper bags and a butterfly net.
We hadn't been driving long when I spied another amazing thing on the side of the road. A rather large Bearded Dragon lizard had crawled to the top of a fencepost and conveniently died there! Flies were buzzing all around his cadaver and I thought to myself that his skeleton would make a marvellous specimen for my Zoology major work that term.
"Sto-o-oop, Mum", I squawked!
Mum stomped on the brake and I nearly flew through the windshield to meet Mr Lizard (RIP) on his fencepost. I marched right up and seized him just behind his forelegs, hoping against hope that decomposition wasn't so bad that his skeleton would fall apart in my hand. The attending flies set up an angry buzzing, but that wasn't what caught my immediate attention...
You can imagine my acute chagrin as I realised that not only was Mr Lizard quite alive and well, but he was also quite p***** off! He shot out his submandibular 'beard', sucked in a bellyful of air and hissed at me like a dyspeptic kettle! All I could do was hang on to the beast, because I believed he would eat me if I set him down again. There was nothing for it but to carry the thing home and hope for a solution there. With Great Misgiving, my poor little Mum was forced to drive home with me sitting beside her clutching an irascible reptile who periodically writhed and hissed and basically gave us his basilisk-like evil eye!
I digress to say these guys aren't so very big: this one was only about two feet long. They can, however, give you a really septic bite because they feed on carrion and therefore harbour unspeakable bacteria in their mouths. Not only that, but the claws are pretty formidable as well: easily half-an-inch long and five of them on each lizardly little footsie!
Once home, I gratefully put the squirming animal into our pink bathtub for a nice rest while I rang some of my Sources. All Australian reptiles are protected, so it would have been illegal (and immoral) of me to kill Mr Lizard as a specimen. Somehow, I had to find a way to repatriate him somewhere safe. In the meanwhile, Mr Lizard had retreated to the far end of the bathtub right up under the tap. I was very interested to note that he quickly changed colour from chocolate brown to beige in an attempt to match his environment. This worked very well for him but not so well for others...
Hours later, my Dad came home from work. Tired and messy (he was a butcher), Dad headed straight for the bathroom and a restorative soak in the tub. As usual, he stood under the shower nozzle to wash off the grime before drawing a bath. Not quite as usual, an enraged lizard ran up his leg, eyeballed him angrily and hurtled off again to hiss indignantly at my father's retreating bottom.
This was the first (and only) time in my life I ever saw my father naked. It was not a pretty sight, mostly owing to the purple hue of his face as he squealed at me.
"Why, Patricia? Why is there a bloody crocodile in my bathtub? A man can't turn round in this house any more! You've got me in fear of my life!"
... and he went off muttering something about other men's daughters and dolls.
Eventually, I released Mr Lizard back into the wild and his release was also something of a fraught moment. But that's another boring story.
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