Excitement

Every now and again, Stuart comes home really excited.  The symptoms are always the same.  He rushes through the door, ditches things on the floor, hands me his phone and says something along the lines of “I saw this….”  And this time it was this… on the track not far from the house…

I saw this...
I saw this…

And so starts the process of identifying it.  This usually happens before he has changed out of his suit and continues until we have an ID.  This time it is a shingleback lizard.

Wiki says this about them

Tiliqua rugosa is a short-tailed, slow moving species of blue-tongued skink found in Australia. Three of the four recognised subspecies are found only in Western Australia, where they are known collectively by the common name bobtail.

So I guess being in Eastern Australia, ours is the other subspecies.  They are also only found in the southern half of Australia.  The tail stores body fat and is apparently the shape of the head to confuse predators.

More information elsewhere gives this

…the huge scales covering the body giving it a rough and bumpy appearance. The general colour varies somewhat from an all over dark brown to patterns of light brown, cream and even yellow. Like its close relative, the tongue is large, fleshy and dark blue in colour and used to warn off any potential threats such as dingoes or foxes. Adult shinglebacks are robust lizards with a broad, triangular head. A large adult will measure over 35cm in length.

And they seem to eat mostly vegetation.

Most of the diet is made up of vegetable matter including foliage, berries and fruits. They have a particular liking for flowers and will seasonally gorge themselves on blossoms, particularly yellow ones, if given the opportunity. The occasional insect, spider or scorpion are also eaten.

Almost unique in the lizard world, shinglebacks find a compatible mate and then will continue to pair up with the same partner every spring for 20 or more years…

Luckily, Stuart and I have adopted the policy of you stop there and then to photograph it, you don’t hope it will still be there when you get back!

Hercule Poirot (HP)

Meet Hercule Poirot.  We did consider very briefly Guy because he reminds us of a certain chocolate… Guylian Belgian Seashells and you have to know me and my chocolate addiction to understand that one, but I didn’t want Guy and wanted Gorgeous Guylian, but Stuart didn’t.  So we had a rethink.  We couldn’t really keep him as Ian even if the spelling is different (Stuart’s brother is Iain) so thinking caps on and somehow Stuart came up with Poirot.  I decided to include the Hercule and we now have HP for short.

Hercule Poirot or HP
Hercule Poirot or HP
Checking out the new guy in town
Checking out the new guy in town
Love at first sight says the smallest of the flock.
Love at first sight says the smallest of the flock.

And it was…

On Parade
On Parade
On Parade
On Parade

We kept them in the outer enclosure for a couple of hours until all the grain on the ground had been rather eagerly consumed by HP and then opened the gate.  The chooks scarpered very quickly.  HP took a while longer, ran a long way off worrying me slightly and then called out to find the girls.  He is now following them around very carefully and every now and again crows though sometimes it sounds like someone has a plastic bag on his head already!

VV is behaving, JJ2 tried a tussle with him and very quickly realised it was a mistake.  CC has found someone her size, JJ is very curious and rather like a 10 year old around an adult she admires, and HH rather like a teenager, besotted and already, well I probably don’t need to say.

It is a case of watch this space.  Hopefully this will resolve the issues with VV and life will return to a somewhat less violent place with her having her freedom.  Currently she is out with them all, but keeping her distance from the rest of the flock.  Has she been cast out?