When the children were small, in pride of place on the side of the garage, was a bug zapper. This consisted of a fluorescent light bulb inside a cage. It would attract the many and varied bugs that were hanging around outside the house, and of course they would get too close to the globe, and zap! There would be a zzzzzzit sound, and the bug was no more. The bugs would eventually fall to the ground, where they would be eagerly devoured by the resident blue tongued lizard. Now this blue tongue was the grandaddy of them all. He was huge. They can grow to be up to 2 feet long, and this fellow was all of that. In fact he may have been the grandma of them all, because it seems the females grown larger than the males.
He had made his home under the bushes under the bug zapper, and he had been there for months that I was aware of. I didn’t see him often, but I would hear a rustle in the bushes, and occasionally I would see a head poke out momentarily. He just minded his own business under there, steadily growing, and eating the barbecued bugs, and varying his diet with the odd slug and snail. All was well till one day the dogs, Jessie and Albert, discovered him.
The lizard had come part way out from under the bush, the better to have a sunbake, and the dogs saw his head, and immediately started frenzied barking. After all, this MIGHT be a snake! I came running outside, just in case it was, although what I was going to do I wasn’t quite sure, apart from call the dogs inside, and make sure the kids weren’t out there…. Anyway I got outside just in time for the lizard to move towards them, showing pretty well all his bulk, and open his mouth, poking his blue tongue out at the dogs, and hissing, and flattening his body, making it appear even larger. This was too much for the dogs, who were fairly close to the lizard at this stage. The pair of them bolted to the opposite side of the yard and continued barking loudly from their new position of safety, about 20 or 30 feet away.
When I saw it was only the lizard, I decided there was no cause for panic, and called the dogs inside, so that the lizard could calm down and climb back under his bush, in peace. The dogs felt pretty brave from that distance and took a bit of convincing that it was a good idea to come in. They kept woofing as they moved to the door, as if to say, well okay, mum said we have to go inside…..but watch out next time, buster!
But peace reigned for the rest of the summer, probably because the lizard timed his sunbakes for when the dogs weren’t around…..
Mamaroo's Diary 